The Ruined City Page 19

  They went in and took a small table at the rear. Jianna scanned the room discreetly; moderate size, plain furnishings, waxed plank flooring, reasonably clean, dimly lit. She somehow had the sense that The Cask was always dim, even on the brightest of days, and always had been so. The patrons, in their own way, were equally dim; a knot of unobtrusively idle tipplers at one table, a couple of decently neat apprentices, a lone greybeard nursing his glass of wine, a few anonymously respectable tradesmen, and a trio of elderly women seated together and giggling over their gossip as if they imagined themselves young.

  In addition to drink, The Cask offered a modest bill of fare. Jianna and Falaste ordered soup. The bowls arrived promptly. The contents were acceptable and ordinary. They spooned soup and talked on. Lost in his conversation and his eyes, and the clear line of his jaw, Jianna lost all track of time. She had no idea how long it was before a shadow glided across the table, the air moved, and the chair beside her was suddenly occupied.

  She turned to look, but there was nothing remarkable to see. Just an ordinary man of indeterminate years, plainly dressed, medium size and build, forgettable bland face, nondescript to the verge of invisibility. If asked to describe him, she would have found it difficult—there were no distinguishing features.

  “Rione. Been a while,” observed the stranger. His intonation was difficult to place. He might have been a shopkeeper, an artisan, a gentleman’s valet, a clerk—almost anything. “I’ve been off in the hills up until a few days ago,” Rione replied. “Good to see you, L.”

  L? Jianna’s brows rose.

  Rione answered the unspoken question at once. “Maidenlady Noro Penzia, allow me to present my associate Lousewort. L, the Maidenlady Noro is my assistant, and she’s spent the last several weeks tending our ailing friends out in the Alziras.”

  “Maidenlady.” Lousewort inclined his head courteously enough, but he was studying her closely, eyes a little narrowed and forehead creased, as if trying to catch a memory.

  She felt like a child about to be caught in a lie, and it wasn’t fair, for “Lousewort” certainly wasn’t his legitimate name. Nonetheless, she could hardly keep from squirming beneath that faintly puzzled gaze. She smiled politely, met his eyes, and did not blink.

  Mercifully, his attention shifted back to Rione. The two of them launched into a terse exchange of enigmatic, presumably coded information that seemed to describe recent resistance activity taking place within and without Vitrisi. Jianna understood every word touching upon the recent illness among the Ghosts of the hills, but most of the other references eluded her, particularly those alluding to “Matchlock’s Fire Brigade.” Thoroughly ignored, she grew restive. They were like children, she told herself; like little boys forming secret societies guarded by passwords and rituals designed to exclude the rest of the world, particularly the female half of it, whose members weren’t interested, anyway.

  The abruptness of its conclusion took her by surprise. One moment, they were speaking of “the final fruits of the Blue Rooster Enterprise,” whatever that might have meant, and the next Lousewort was leaning forward across the table to inquire, with the air of a man getting down to business, “And what have we today, then?”

  “You recall my sister Celisse?” asked Rione. The Cask’s healthy buzz of conversation made it easy to speak without being overheard, yet he lowered his voice.

  Jianna’s interest revived.

  “Hard to forget her,” Lousewort replied.

  “You remember her zeal, energy, and courage.”

  “Admirable.”

  “Her virtues occasionally impinge upon vice. She’s taken it firmly into her head that the Governor Uffrigo must be eliminated. Following an unsuccessful effort to drum up support in camp, she left without a word to anyone. Nobody expected her to do such a thing, so nobody stopped her. Perhaps I should have guessed, perhaps I should have paid more attention, but I was preoccupied with my work. I know my sister well enough, though, to be quite certain that she’s come to Vitrisi determined to do the job on her own.”

  A low whistle escaped Lousewort. “That girl’s a bolt of lightning,” he opined.

  “And likely to blast us all as she crashes in glorious ruin. I’ve been searching for days, and I haven’t been able to find her.” Rione shook his head. “I’ve dropped my name all over town, but she refuses to come to me. And now I must confess that I need help.”

  “My people will do all they can. Several of them would know Celisse Rione by sight. As for the others, we’ll work up a good description. She shouldn’t be so hard to spot, she naturally stands out. It is only a matter of time.”

  “Good. I needn’t point out the consequences of her success.”

  “But her success is nearly impossible, isn’t it?” Jianna interjected. The questioning eyes of her companions turned toward her, and she continued, “I mean—she’s dauntless, daring, dedicated, and all that sort of thing, but when all’s said and done, she’s just one young woman, all alone. What real chance has she of coming anywhere near the governor? Uffrigo has all sorts of guards and attendants about him, hasn’t he? What will she do, whip out a poniard and fight her way through an entire squadron single-handed? Isn’t it far more likely that the girl will soon be forced to recognize the impossibility of her task? What can she do then but admit defeat?”

  The two men traded glances. Neither replied.

  The tangle of twisty little lanes known as the Briar Patch was bewildering at the best of times, and doubly so now. The narrow, unpaved streets, sunk in the shade of architectural projections almost meeting overhead, hoarded smoke, odors, moisture, and darkness. The dense atmosphere permitted vision only a few feet in any direction, and those few feet were likely to include exterior walls slashed with great red X’s that often blotted out street names. Even those residents quite familiar with the area might easily have lost their bearings, and strangers were certain to suffer confusion.

  Thus, not surprisingly, the lanes were comparatively empty, while those hardy souls venturing abroad went masked and muffled against contagion. The plague menaced all of Vitrisi, these days. Not even the highest and wealthiest enclave, much less this obscure warren, could regard itself as safe. Yet here, somehow, it seemed that the pedestrians were particularly vigilant. More often than not they walked in pairs or larger groups, and the eyes behind the protective masks were particularly active, sweeping this way and that, as if there were something more than disease to dread.

  One young woman, however, did not fear to walk alone. Her step was confident and purposeful, her pace brisk. Her one apparent concession to the menace of the plague resided in the kerchief wrapped loosely about the lower portion of her face, covering her nose and mouth. Above the lattice-patterned fabric, her grey-blue eyes were alert and watchful. The eyes searched everywhere, and soon spied what they sought: an adult male Sishmindri, loitering in the gloom of a recessed doorway.

  Everything about the amphibian was peculiar. He was naked, for one thing; unencumbered with livery or human garments of any description. Although seemingly healthy, he leaned upon a stout stick that might have served as a support, but might easily have been viewed as a crude and illegal weapon. Most surprising of all, he performed no bow or gesture of respect as the young woman approached. He stood straight and still, observing her inscrutably.

  She halted before him. The two studied each other in silence, and still he neither bowed, nor dipped his head, nor even lowered his great golden eyes in subservience. The silence lengthened, and it was the human who was obliged to break it.

  “I have heard,” she announced in cultivated and melodic tones, “that your kind is free and proud, here in this place.” There was no reply, and she pressed, “Is this true?”

  He stared at her.

  “If it is true,” she continued, “then it is good, and I am glad. But your freedom is a sickly infant. You are surrounded on all sides by your enemies and oppressors.”

  “You go.” He spoke at last, words
thickly accented but comprehensible. “Go from this place.”

  “I will not go until I’ve been heard.”

  “What do you want here?”

  “To ask and to offer help.” There was no reply, and she continued, “I have heard that a leader has risen among you, and that he is called Aazaargh.” The name she uttered emerged as something between a croak and a grunt. “I have heard that this is his real name, his Sishmindri name. If so, I am honored to speak it, however poor my pronunciation.”

  “What do you want here?” the amphibian repeated.

  “I wish to speak to Aazaargh. I’ve an offer to extend to all Sishmindris enslaved and imprisoned within this human city of Vitrisi.”

  “What offer?”

  “Your leader may hear it, if he will.”

  “Who are you?”

  “My name is Celisse Rione. I am of the Faerlonnish resistance.”

  “You have the right to speak for them?”

  “For those among them of courage and sound understanding, yes. Now, will you lead me to Aazaargh?”

  For some moments he stared at her. She sustained the scrutiny unmoved.

  “Come,” he said at last. Turning from her, he set off along the lane, and Celisse fell into step beside him.

  Soon they passed under a dilapidated archway into a garbage-strewn courtyard, through a gate into another lane smaller and darker than the last, and thence along a walkway too narrow to be called a street. As they went, there were fewer and fewer human pedestrians to be seen, and presently none. Sishmindris, however, increased in number. All of them were naked, and many bore weapons—not sticks or tools of ambiguous function, but knives, spiked clubs, spears, even two or three swords. Moreover, these implements were carried openly, even in the presence of a human observer. If anyone had cause to fear, it was doubtless the human. Alien golden eyes pressed almost palpably upon Celisse Rione. She appeared unaware.

  They came to a tenement with boarded windows and a front door reddened with the mark of quarantine. There they halted.

  “You fear the Invader,” stated the guide, evidently employing his own kind’s term for the plague.

  “I am not afraid,” Celisse returned, and saw the other’s air sacs swell in surprise. “Lead on.”

  He complied, and they went into a dank street-level foyer containing an eccentric collection of big vats, washtubs, caulked barrels, and even a couple of metal bathtubs. All of these vessels were filled with water, and several of them occupied by Sishmindris satisfying their natural taste for bathing. All hairless heads turned as the human female entered. Water sloshed audibly against the wall of many a vat, and protuberant golden eyes stared.

  They halted.

  “Wait,” commanded the guide. Turning from her, he departed.

  Celisse Rione stood quietly where he had left her, just inside the doorway. If she felt the pressure of universal regard, she showed no sign of it. She neither fidgeted nor stirred. Her face was calm and still. Only her eyes moved, deliberately scanning the foyer, its contents and occupants. The contents included piles of rocks, bottles, and bricks; supplies of sharpened sticks leaning against one wall; coils of rope, and lengths of thick iron chain.

  One of the Sishmindris climbed out of his bath, dripped his way across the floor, and paused before Celisse, inspecting her unabashedly in a manner that would, in normal times and society, have earned him a sound hiding. Celisse calmly mirrored the expressionless regard. A second amphibian joined the first, then another, and presently a Sishmindri semicircle hemmed her in closely. And still she displayed no flicker of unease.

  Soft splat of a web-toed foot upon the damp tile floor, and her original guide was back again.

  “Come,” he commanded.

  She followed him up a rickety stairway to a second-story corridor, through an open door into a good-sized chamber with heavy window curtains shut against the daylight. The room was bare of human furnishings other than a row of brimming washbasins ranged against one wall. Three naked amphibians squatted on the floor. Their palms rested flat upon the wooden planking, their knees were widely splayed. One of them was the biggest Sishmindri that Celisse had ever seen. His shoulders were uncommonly broad, the musculature prominent, his hands almost freakishly large. He would never have found a place of much visibility in any fashionable household, for he lacked stylish resemblance to humankind. His bulging eyes were set high on a very flat skull, and his lipless mouth split his face from air sac to air sac.

  “You are Aazaargh?” Celisse inquired of the overgrown amphibian.

  “Yes. What are your words?”

  His accent was heavy. Only by dint of strenuous concentration was she able to understand and reply without a request for repetition. He was surely closer to a Sishmindri in its natural state than any other she had ever encountered.

  “It is said,” Celisse declared, “that you and your people have taken this section of the city and made it your own.” Expecting no reply, she continued without pause, “This is a noble deed, worthy of honor. You have suffered vile injustice at the hands of men, you are the victims of countless crimes. Your courage now in liberating and defending yourselves is to be admired.”

  No reply. Aazaargh and his companions attended expressionlessly.

  “But your daring and nobility are useless, and your efforts doomed to failure,” Celisse stated dispassionately. “You are surrounded on all sides by the forces of men. In their own good time they will turn their attention to you, and then your dream of freedom will die. You cannot hope to conquer, nor can you hope to escape. Most of you will die, and the survivors will return to slavery.”

  “No slavery,” said Aazaargh.

  “Death, then.” Celisse nodded her approval. “You are right. But what if there is another choice? You must understand that the ranks of the oppressed include humans as well as Sishmindris. All Faerlonnishmen, native to this island, presently suffer the tyranny of the Taerleezi invader. I will own that we have not suffered as your kind has suffered, yet we have known much of grief and injustice. The wiser among us have profited by the lesson. We have come to see that Sishmindris and Faerlonnishmen share a common enemy—the Taerleezis. We have all suffered at Taerleezi hands, we all have cause to hate them, and our hatred of the foreigners should unite us.”

  “Men. Taerleezi. Faerlonnish. All the same.” Aazaargh allowed his lower jaw to gape hugely, then shut it with a snap, evidently an expressive gesture among his kind. “All bad.”

  “In the past, yes. But matters have changed. Now the interests of Sishmindris and Faerlonnishmen have joined. It is for the good of all that we work together to overcome our Taerleezi enemies, to terrify and confuse them. And there is one man among them who is notable both for greatness and wickedness—I speak of their leader, the Governor Uffrigo. When this man dies, his subjects will wonder and tremble. Their fear will weaken them. This Governor Uffrigo must fall. Let your kind and mine join forces to destroy him.”

  “And then? Faerlonnishmen rule, Sishmindris whipped.”

  “No longer. Join with Faerlonnishmen to drive the Taerleezis from our land, and your deeds will not be forgotten. The best of Faerlonnishmen know something of honor. We pay our debts.”

  “Freedom.”

  “I cannot in all honesty make so great a promise. But I can and do swear to you that humans of conscience will begin working to free you, and we shall never cease until that aim is accomplished. Among us, your freedom will be held as sacred as our own. Now, will you help us?”

  There followed a brief, unintelligible colloquy among the Sishmindris, and then Aazaargh addressed the human visitor. “Yes. We join, and the big Taerleezi dies.”

  TEN

  It was midday, and a blanched sun shone directly overhead. The light descended through a fretwork of branches no longer winter-bare, but knobbed with the first growth of early spring. Small green shoots were beginning to appear, and the old, faded mosses were taking on a brighter tinge of color. The world hinted at renewe
d plenty, but as yet the promise remained unfulfilled.

  Along a narrow footpath snaking its way down out of the Alzira Hills advanced a solitary figure. Although he was still young, his steps were halting, and he required the support of a staff. His garments were ragged and filthy, his hair unshorn and tangled. A wide hat, its brim pulled low, partially hid the one-eyed ruin of Onartino Belandor’s face.

  He must have been hungry, for he paused often to pluck new growth from the low-hanging branches, or from the brambles tangling alongside the trail. These leaves and stems he chewed at some length, but invariably spat forth without swallowing. Several times he paused and knelt laboriously to finger the damp soil in search of edible roots or fungi, but found none. Only once he uncovered a coil of worms beneath a rock, and these he devoured, but his hunger remained unsatisfied.

  On along the path he hobbled, lone eye shifting dully to and fro, until the breeze delivered a recognizable scent. He halted. The nostrils in his shattered nose flared and his big chest expanded as he drew a breath to the depths of his lungs. Stepping from the path, he forced his way through thorny undergrowth until, several yards distant, he found the source of the smell.

  Beneath a bush lay a trap, evidently forgotten. The metal was red-brown with rust, and the contents—an adult meecher of ordinary size—odorously decomposing. The animal’s corpse was riddled with maggots, but this hardly deterred Onartino. Despite their injuries his hands retained considerable strength, and he pried the jaws of the trap apart with ease, then tore the corpse of the meecher limb from limb. His brows contracted as he ate. Presumably the flavor of the meat failed to please him, but the pace of his chewing and swallowing never slackened until the meecher had been consumed down to the last scrap of remotely edible tissue.