Snare

‘Really?’

‘Really. Shall we go in?’

‘By all means. I’m anxious to see this treasure of yours.’

‘I just hope you can tell me what it is.’

She led the way back into the apartment. They walked down a short hallway to her tiny widow’s room, which sported a window on one wall, a narrow bed at one end, a small threadbare rug on the floor, and little else. Out of habit she still kept her clothes, her jewellery, the chests of bed linens, and the like in the large room she’d shared with her husband. One of the treasures he’d given her, however, she kept here, where a thief would never bother to look for anything valuable. She set the lamp down on a wooden stand. Soutan sat on the floor, cross-legged, while she knelt by the rug and rolled it back to expose the sliding panel under it.

Inside the hide-hole lay a book, bound in purple cloth, and what appeared to be a thin oblong of grey slate, about twelve inches by nine, lying on a black scarf. As she was taking the slate and scarf out, Soutan craned his neck to look inside the hole; she slid the panel shut fast. He laughed.

‘By all means,’ Soutan said, ‘you’d best keep that book hidden. The Sibylline Prophecies, isn’t it?’

Nehzaym shrugged, then laid the slate down between them on the scarf. It hummed three musical notes and began to glow.

‘God is great,’ Nehzaym sang out. ‘The Lord our God is one, and Mohammed, Agvar, and Kaleel are His prophets. In their names may all evil things be far away!’

‘Amen.’ Soutan leaned forward, staring.

In the centre of the panel the glow brightened to a pale blue square, which slowly coagulated into the image of a round room with a high ceiling. Floors, walls, the dais in the middle, the steps leading up to that dais – they all glittered silver in a mysterious light falling from above.

‘Whenever I take it out, I see that picture,’ Nehzaym said.

‘Does it show you others?’ Soutan said.

‘Only this one. And look!’ Nehzaym pointed to a narrow red bar of light, pulsing at one side of the slate. ‘When this light flashes, a minute or two later the image fades.’

Already, in fact, the room was dissolving back into the pale blue glow. The red light died, leaving the slate only a slate. Soutan made a hissing sound and shook his head. ‘Where did your husband get this?’

‘In Bariza. He bought it in the marketplace from a man who dealt in curios.’

‘Curios? Well, I suppose the ignorant would see it that way. Do you know anything about it?’

‘Only that you have to feed it sunlight every day. I take it to the garden. In the rainy season it doesn’t work very well.’

‘No, it wouldn’t. Our ancestors knew how to bind spirits into their magicks. They feed on sunlight. When they’re hungry, they refuse to do their job.’

‘I can’t say I blame them. Are the spirits immortal?’

‘What a strange question!’ Soutan smiled, drawing back thin lips from large teeth. ‘Everything alive must die, sooner or later.’

‘And when all the spirits die?’

‘There won’t be any more magic, just like your Third Prophet said. No doubt you Kazraks will celebrate.’

‘We’ve chosen to live as the First Prophet wanted us to live, yes.’ She paused, choosing her words carefully. ‘And how will your people feel about losing their magic?’

Soutan shrugged, his smile gone. ‘Let’s hope it doesn’t happen for a good long while, a thousand years, say.’ He pointed at the panel. ‘What do you think that room is?’

‘I was hoping you could tell me.’

‘I can’t, not for certain, but I’ll make a guess. You have a copy of the Sibyl’s book. Have you read the part about the empty shrine?’

Nehzaym felt her clasped hands tighten.

‘I see you have,’ Soutan said. ‘One of these days you might see the Fourth Prophet standing on that dais.’

‘If God would only allow, I’d happily die.’

‘You’d be happier if you stayed around to see what happened next. Now. Let me see if I can show you something interesting. May I pick it up?’

‘Certainly.’

Soutan took the slate and peered at it in the dancing lamplight. He ran one long finger down the side, paused, fingered the back of it, then suddenly smiled. He took a full breath, and when he spoke, the sound seemed to come from deep inside his body and buzz like an insect. The words made no sense to her at all. The spirit in the slate, however, must have understood them, because the panel chimed a long note in answer.

Soutan laid the slate back down on the floor. A new picture was forming of a different room, inlaid with blue and white quartz in a diamond pattern.

‘Another shrine?’ Nehzaym whispered.

‘Perhaps. Wait and see.’

Slowly the room became clear – a half round, this time, and just in front of the flat wall stood two slender pillars, one grey, one white. Between them hung what appeared to be a gauzy veil, yet it shimmered and sparked with bluish light. Nehzaym twined her hands round each other. A pale blue thing shaped like a man appeared in the centre of the room. He waved his hands and seemed to be speaking, but she could hear nothing. Suddenly the thing’s face filled the image. Its eyes were mere pools of darker blue; its purple lips mouthed soundless words.

Nehzaym shrieked, a sound that must have frightened the spirit inside the slate. Once again the red light began to flash. The image disappeared.

‘May the Lord preserve!’ Nehzaym said. ‘A ghost!’

‘Do you think so?’ Soutan looked at the panel for a long silent moment. ‘If I had gold and jewels to give, I’d heap them all in your lap in return for it. Unfortunately, I don’t.’ His voice dropped. ‘Unfortunate for you, perhaps.’

Nehzaym started to speak, but her voice caught and trembled. Soutan rose to his knees and considered her narrow-eyed, his hands hanging loose at his sides, his fists clenched.

‘Take it,’ Nehzaym said.

‘What?’

‘If you want the nasty thing, it’s yours. I work and pray for the coming of the Fourth Prophet, but this is evil sorcery. I don’t want it in my house.’

Soutan sat back on his heels and stared at her slack-mouthed.

‘I suppose I must look superstitious to you,’ Nehzaym said. ‘I don’t care. Take it. It’s unclean.’

‘Who am I to turn down such a generous gift?’ Soutan scooped up the slate.

‘Take the scarf, too. I don’t want it, either. It’s touched something unclean.’

With a shrug he picked up the length of black cloth and began wrapping up the slate.

‘May the Lord forgive!’ Nehzaym said. ‘I’ll have to do penance. Necromancy! In my own house, too!’

‘Oh for god’s sake!’ Soutan snapped. ‘It was only an image of a ghost, not the thing itself.’ Soutan cradled the wrapped slate in the crook of one arm. ‘I’ll have to look through the books in Indan’s library. I wonder just whose ghost that was?’

‘I don’t care. You shouldn’t either.’

Soutan laughed. ‘I’ve learned so much from your scholars that it’s a pity I can’t stay in Haz Kazrak. But all the knowledge in the world won’t do me any good if I’m dead.’

‘If you bring Jezro home, you’ll have an army of scholars to fetch your impious books.’

‘Oh, stop worrying about impiety! You’re too old to shriek and giggle like a girl.’

‘I what? That’s a rude little remark.’

‘You deserve it. I must say that you Kazraks have the right idea about one thing, the way you train your girls to stay out of sight. But you’re an old woman, and it’s time you learned some sense.’

‘I beg your pardon!’

‘You should, yes.’ Soutan shrugged one shoulder. ‘I’d better get back to Indan’s townhouse. He wants to leave early.’

After she showed Soutan out, Nehzaym told the gatekeeper to loose the lizards for the night. Before she went back to her apartment, she stopped in the warehouse to wind the floor clock with its big brass key. As she stood there, listening to the clock’s ticking in the silent room, she suddenly remembered Soutan, talking about wanting the slate and looking at her in that peculiar way. She’d been so upset at the time that she’d barely noticed his change of mood. Now, she felt herself turn cold.

He might have murdered her for that slate.

‘Oh don’t be silly!’ she said aloud. ‘He’s a friend of Jezro Khan’s. He wouldn’t do any such thing.’

But yet – she was glad, she realized, very glad, that she’d seen the last of him.

Beyond the Great Khan’s city, true-roses rarely bloomed, and the grass grew purple, not green. All the vegetation native to the planet depended for photosynthesis on a pair of complex molecules similar to Old Earth carotenoids, producing colours ranging from orange to magenta and purple to a maroon verging on black. At the Kazraki universities, scholars taught that the plant they called grass should have another name and that the spear trees were no true trees at all, but the ordinary people no longer cared about such things, any more than they cared about their lost homeland, which lay, supposedly, far beyond the western seas.

Not far south of Haz Kazrak, on a pleasant stretch of seacoast, where grass grew green in a few gardens but purple in most other places, stood a rambling sort of town where rich men built summer villas. Fortunately, Councillor Indan’s lands were somewhat isolated; graceful russet fern trees hid his hillside villa. Behind the orange thorn walls of his compound lay a small garden and a rambling house of some thirty rooms – just a little country place, or so Indan called it – arranged on three floors. When Warkannan rode up, the gatekeeper swung the doors wide and looked over the party: Warkannan and Arkazo on horseback, and behind them, a small cart driven by a servant from Indan’s townhouse.

‘I’ve brought the councillor a present,’ Warkannan said. ‘A carved chest from the north.’

Since wood hard enough to be carved meant true-oak, an expensive rarity, Indan’s servants saw nothing suspicious about the way Warkannan hovered over the well-wrapped chest and insisted that he and Arkazo carry it themselves. All smiles, Indan greeted them and suggested they take the chest directly upstairs. Soutan helped them haul the six-foot-long and surprisingly heavy bundle up to a third-floor storage room.

The sorcerer watched as Warkannan and Arkazo unwrapped the rags and untied the rope holding the chest closed. It was indeed a beautiful piece of true-wood, sporting an intricate geometrical pattern, but someone had spoiled it by drilling a pair of holes in one narrow end. When Warkannan opened the lid, he found his prisoner nicely alive, still bleary from the drugs, but unsmothered.

‘Hazro!’ Indan whispered. ‘I would have never suspected him. One of the Mustavas – unthinkable!’

‘He bragged to someone, saying he was more important than he looked, the usual crap. Somehow it got back to the Chosen. We need to know how and who.’

‘Lies,’ Hazro mumbled.

Warkannan and Arkazo pulled him out of the chest. When he tried to stand, he sagged and nearly fell. When Warkannan shoved him back against the wall, he whimpered and glanced around with half-closed eyes.

‘I tried to reason with him,’ Warkannan said. ‘Hazro, come on! One last chance. Tell us the truth. That’s all I’m asking you. Just tell us the truth.’

‘Nothing to tell.’ Hazro tried to stand straight and defiant, but he nearly fell. ‘You – how dare you – your family started out as a bunch of blacksmiths.’

Warkannan glanced at the councillor. ‘This is what I’ve been up against. He won’t tell me a thing.’

‘May the Lord forgive us all!’ Indan said. ‘By the way, I’ve figured out a way to blame the Chosen for his death. We’ve got to keep his father on our side.’

Hazro whimpered and let tears run.

‘He’s still drugged,’ Warkannan said. ‘I’ll question him later.’

‘Good.’ But Indan looked queasy with anticipation. ‘This room has thick walls, and no one will hear a thing.’

That night they dined in a room with a splendid view of the ocean. Servants brought fresh seabuh, a spikey, six-armed creature in a purple carapace, a mixed vegetable salad, and ammonites dressed with sheep butter. As they ate, Warkannan told them what Lubahva had learned.

‘The Chosen suspect Soutan of being up to no good, but they’re not sure what.’ Warkannan nodded at the self-proclaimed sorcerer, who was stuffing his mouth with as much ammonite as it could hold. ‘They’re making inquiries all over the city.’

Soutan shuddered and wiped his mouth on a napkin.

‘Let’s assume the worst,’ Indan said. ‘If they’re making inquiries here, they must have sent a man east.’

‘Probably so,’ Warkannan said. ‘But it’s going to be damned hard for him to make his way east alone.’

‘Who says he’ll go alone?’ Arkazo asked.

‘The Chosen always do,’ Warkannan said.

‘Not that this makes life easier for their enemies.’ Indan glanced away slack-mouthed. ‘For us, that is.’

‘Oh yes.’ Warkannan leaned back in his chair and considered him. ‘If the Chosen find out that the khan’s still alive, we have no cause, gentlemen. They’ll find a way to kill him no matter where he is. So we’d better make sure this spy doesn’t find him. I’m going after him.’

‘You can’t do that,’ Indan said. ‘Your leave from the Guard’s almost up.’

‘I sent in my letter of resignation before we left the city. I’ve put in my twenty years, and I told them that this investment venture looked too good to pass up.’

For a long moment Indan studied Warkannan’s face; then he sighed. ‘That’s quite a sacrifice,’ Indan said. ‘The cavalry means everything to you.’

‘The cavalry I joined did. In the past few years –’ Warkannan shrugged. ‘Gemet’s paranoia is going to poison the whole khanate, sooner or later.’

‘Unless we supply the antidote?’ Indan smiled, a wry twist of his mouth.

‘Just that. It’s a tall order, but if God wills, we’ll succeed. If He doesn’t, well, then, who am I to argue?’

Outside the sunset was darkening into twilight. A servant slipped in and began lighting the oil in silver lamps. While he waited for the man to leave, Warkannan looked round the table at his allies, at the luxurious room, at all the comforts of life that he might never see again. As the lamp flames grew, they sparkled on silver, on crystal, on the enormous ruby at the centre of Soutan’s headband. The fitful light seemed to be illuminating not just the room but the moment, a point of history upon which the destiny of the khanate would turn. The servant bowed and left the room.

‘Warkannan,’ Indan hissed. ‘If the Chosen find any evidence at all to back up their suspicions, leaving the Guard will brand you as a traitor. You’ll never be able to ride back to Kazrajistan.’

‘Oh yes I will. At the head of an army.’ Warkannan turned to Soutan. ‘It’s time Jezro’s letter got an answer.’

Soutan considered him with a thin smile. His puzzling old man’s eyes were unreadable in the shadows.

‘I always intended to take someone back to Jezro,’ Soutan said at last. ‘And you’ll never make it across the Rift alone, so I’d better go with you.’

‘Someday you’ll be the vizier of a Great Khan in return for all this.’

‘If your God allows. But there’s nothing left for an exile but one gamble after another, is there? We might as well deal the cards.’ Soutan took a slice of pickled blakbuh from a silver tray and nibbled on it. ‘The omens say the time is ripe for a change in the Great Khan’s fortunes, and it’s not a good one. A malefic current is forming a vortex around his personal symbols – a time of budding danger for him.’

Arkazo laughed. ‘Then let’s help the malefic along.’

Soutan favoured him with a look of contempt. ‘That, my dear child, is my point and not an occasion for bad jokes.’

Indan leaned forward before Arkazo could reply. ‘And what about your nephew, Captain? You’d better send him back to his father’s estate before you leave.’

‘No!’ Arkazo slammed his hand down on the table and made the oil dance dangerously in the lamps. ‘All my life I’ve been shut up, either on Father’s lousy estate or at university. Now I’ve finally got a chance at some excitement.’

‘My dear young fellow,’ Indan began.

Warkannan raised a hand and interrupted him. ‘He’ll have to come with me, Councillor. He’s been staying in my bungalow. If the Chosen decide we don’t pass muster, he’s the first one they’ll arrest.’

Arkazo laughed with a toss of his head.

‘Listen, Kaz,’ Warkannan said. ‘This isn’t any joke. It’s going to be dangerous, and your mother’s going to curse my very name for this.’

‘Not once she’s got the favour of the new Great Khan’s wife. Mama’s always been the practical sort.’ Arkazo turned abruptly sour. ‘Why else would she have married my father?’

‘This is no place to bring that up.’ Warkannan took the silver flagon and poured them both more rose-scented water – Indan kept a pious table. ‘I wish to God I’d kept you out of this.’

‘You tried. It didn’t work.’

‘It’s too late now, anyway. The dice are thrown, and if it weren’t for you, I’d be glad of it. I’m sick to my gut of all this creeping round and worrying about spies.’

‘Spies, indeed,’ Indan said. ‘Which reminds me –’

‘Just so. We’d better get this over with.’

Everyone pushed their chairs back and stood, suddenly grim, suddenly quiet, even Arkazo.

Warkannan fetched a bucket of hot coals from the kitchen – he told the cook that he wanted to take the chill off his room – then followed the others up to the attic. As stiff as a rolled-up rug, Hazro lay on the floor. When Warkannan set the bucket of coals down, he whimpered and twisted in his ropes. Warkannan knelt beside him and pulled him up to a sitting position, propping him against the wall. Hazro’s dark eyes flicked this way and that.

‘Arkazo?’ Warkannan said. ‘You can leave. You don’t have to watch this.’

‘What are you going to do to him?’ Arkazo was staring at Hazro.

‘You don’t need to know that.’

‘But I –’

Warkannan got up and took one long stride to come face to face with his nephew. His own disgust with what he would have to do in this room turned to cold rage. ‘Get out of here,’ he snapped. ‘Now.’

‘Yes sir.’ Arkazo stepped back sharply. ‘I’m on my way.’

Warkannan waited to ensure that Arkazo was following his orders; then he closed the door and locked it. Indan stuffed a threadbare bit of carpet into the crack at the bottom of the door. When Warkannan knelt down next to him, Hazro moaned under his breath, then steadied himself, forcing defiance into a tight tremulous smile. Warkannan drew his dagger and looked at him over the blade.

‘Listen, boy. This is your last chance. You wouldn’t be refusing to tell me unless you had something to hide.’

Hazro said nothing.

‘Why?’ Indan stepped forward. ‘Why won’t you tell us?’

‘There’s nothing to tell,’ Hazro said.

‘Yes, there is,’ Warkannan said. ‘You’ve been giving information to someone. Who?’

‘No one.’

‘Then why do the Chosen suspect us?’

‘They suspect everyone.’

‘You told them about us.’

‘Never. I didn’t betray Jezro.’

Warkannan made a cut on his cheek, just under his eye. ‘I’m going to keep doing this till you tell me. If your face isn’t sensitive enough, I’ll work on your balls.’

Sweat glazed Hazro’s forehead. ‘I didn’t tell anyone anything.’

Warkannan made another nick, then another till Hazro’s face was sheeting blood. When Warkannan took the lid off the bucket of glowing charcoal, Hazro fainted. Warkannan slapped and shook him to bring him round while he fought his own honest revulsion. He hated extracting information this way, but if he didn’t, what then? The Chosen might well gather them all in, and worse things would happen to his friends, his mistress, his allies, his nephew, down in some hidden room under the Great Khan’s palace. Indan pulled over a wooden storage box and sat down, his eyes weary.

‘Now,’ Warkannan said to Hazro. ‘Who did you tell?’

Hazro shut his bloody lips tight. Warkannan pulled up Hazro’s tunic and made a nick on his scrotum. Hazro screamed.

‘I’ll put a bit of charcoal on that cut next,’ Warkannan said. ‘That’s the procedure – a nick, then a bit of fire, all the way up your cock.’

When Hazro hesitated, Warkannan took the small tongs and fished a glowing coal out of the bucket.

‘It was Lev Rashad. Rashad of the Wazrekej Fifth Mounted. I didn’t realize at first he was one of the Chosen.’

Warkannan felt as if he’d been kicked in the stomach. He knew Rashad, just distantly, but he knew him. You never think it’s going to be someone you know, he told himself.

‘What do you think he was going to do?’ Warkannan said. ‘Announce it in the regimental mess?’

‘I – I –’

‘Wait!’ Indan looked up. ‘You said you didn’t know he was one of them at first. This must mean you realized it later. How?’

‘He must have been the one.’ Hazro started gasping for breath. ‘It couldn’t have been anyone else.’

‘Oh?’ Indan said. ‘He must have dropped some hint. Why didn’t you come straight to us then? You were dangling us like bait in front of him, weren’t you? You were using us to try to buy your way into the Chosen.’

Hazro made a small choking sound deep in his throat.

‘How much did you tell him?’ Warkannan said. ‘Did you mention Jezro?’

‘No, never, I swear it! All I said was that I was on to a good thing with this investment group. I thought he’d join us. We’d been drinking, and I –’

‘You stupid little bastard!’ Warkannan raised the knife. ‘What did you tell him about Jezro?’

‘Nothing!’

‘Why did you want to join the Chosen?’

‘I didn’t. I didn’t.’

Warkannan kept working on him until the smell of charred flesh hung in the room and Hazro was gibbering, not speaking. A bit at a time, Warkannan extracted the information that Hazro had mentioned Soutan, come from the east with ancient maps that might show deposits of blackstone. He admitted bragging, hinting that perhaps he was a man who knew important things.

‘But not Jezro, never Jezro.’ He was sobbing, twitching when his tears touched the open cuts on his face.

‘Indeed? Are you sure of that?’

Over and over he denied having mentioned the name, even when he was at the point of shrieking and writhing at the very sight of a piece of charcoal. Warkannan finally laid down the tongs and sat back on his heels.

‘I believe him. A man in this state tells the truth.’

‘So do I,’ Indan said. ‘As for this business about his wanting to join the Chosen –’

‘I didn’t!’ Hazro tried to shout, but he was gagging on his own blood. ‘I just thought –’

‘What?’ Indan said. ‘What were you thinking?’

‘Insurance.’ Hazro started to cough, then gagged again and spat up bloody rheum. ‘If –’

‘If they were on to us, you were going to turn informer.’ Warkannan finished the thought for him. ‘That’s why you wouldn’t tell us.’

Hazro slumped back against the wall, his bloody lips working.

‘Yes,’ Indan said. ‘I think we finally understand.’

Soutan stepped closer to stare at Hazro’s mutilated manhood, what was left of it. ‘What are you going to do with him now?’

‘Put him out of his misery.’

Hazro screamed, choked again, and tried to speak, but Warkannan grabbed his hair, forced his head back, and slit his throat in one quick stroke. When he looked up, he saw Soutan smiling, his eyes bright, as if from a fever. Soutan nudged the dead body with the toe of his sandal.

‘Do we throw him in the ocean?’

‘No. The Chosen have recognizable ways of torturing a man, and this was one of them. The councillor is going to find something big enough to hide the body. We’ll take it back to Haz Kazrak, and I’ll dump the corpse over the wall of Hazro’s father’s garden at night for the slaves to find. His father won’t suspect us. He’ll think that the Chosen have killed his son, and then he’ll be more loyal to Jezro than ever.’

They left the body in the attic. Warkannan stayed out of sight while Indan ordered the servants to bring up a tub of hot water for his guest room. Once the tub was ready and they were gone, Warkannan could at last bathe away the stench and the gore. He only wished he could wash away his revulsion as easily.