Then Kortis said, like a man quieting rowdy children, “No, sirs. Leave him be. Zrenn, if you have made a Vazkor of him, then you must honor him as a Vazkor. If you cut him into joints now, how will you console my fellow princes?”
Zrenn had regained his feet. He showed his white, hating teeth at me, and donned his pretty fox-mask, and called to his horse.
I saw that many of the silver men had kept on the livery of Vazkor’s guard for this drama, the skull-heads and the black. A man of these moved up on either side, his drawn sword across the saddle bow, pointing at me. Others rode in behind. The strong, cold sunlight did not spare the mangy garments, all that remained of antique splendor. The braid of my harness was half-eaten away.
Kortis Javhovor wheeled his gray about and trotted ahead of us, five of his captains and the bronze soldiery following. My own part of the procession began to trot after. I glanced back. Thirty behind me, parody of Vazkor’s men. No chance to make a break and no weapon in my belt. On foot, runners keeping pace with the horses. Each resembled each, ugly, muddy-dark of flesh with blue shaved pates, maskless. I recalled seeing! their brothers in the fortress on the rock: city slaves, and born to the destiny, slave right through, the soul, bred out of them.
Rather be free and die and than live and live death.
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Of the legendary quantities of enslaved tribal warriors, culled on raids, I had seen none.
The white midday sun balanced above the Temple when we reached it, and somewhere a bird was cawing harshly from a roof or autumn tree; I remember that for it was the only one I ever heard in Eshkorek.
We passed into the Temple, and there were mounted men already arrived, and waiting.
Kortis’ band halted; across the way the first band stared from their masks, six of which were of the gold. The ragged furs were much in evidence there, and under them dark gray and saffron. It was another kind of gold phoenix-mask their leader wore, but still a golden phoenix. He raised his arm listlessly and Kortis replied, each like a doll on a string, with no verbal greeting exchanged.
The second phoenix called, “It seems Lord Erran declines to meet you, my lord. Afraid of the risen one, I suspect.”
Thus I knew him to be Nemarl. I was wondering what plans he had devised for me, what plans Kortis had devised, how long they would make my dying last-all this in a kind of dire, calm, inner debate, numb as if every one of my nerves were gone-when a third group of riders came stealing out of the shade at the statue’s back.
Ten faces of yellow metal here, and the foremost not the phoenix but a golden leopard, and his tunic sewn with plaques of gold, gone bald in spots.
“Not afraid of ghosts, my lords,” he said, “cautious of men. I see Ezlann has come to Eshkorek. That is how Vazkor looked in the days of his magnificence, eh, Kortis? It must make you feel young again to have him so youthful.”
“No, Prince Erran,” Kortis said, “it doubles my years. But he is very like Vazkor.”
“And I hear that he himself claims it as his heritage.” Erran turned to me. Confronted only by masks now, the scene was becoming like some awesome dream. “What shall we do with him, then? Make him our king?”
Nemarl said heavily, “We have a score to settle with Vazkor. The crimes of the father have descended to the son. This one shall pay the debt. It is on this understanding that We meet. To savor justice too long delayed.”
It occurred to me Zrenn himself had joked when he spoke of Nemarl’s joking. Nemarl was not a man for jokes. He was
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perhaps forty years of age; he, too, would recollect my father.
The soldiers about me began abruptly to ride forward, and my horse trotted obediently with them.
We were at the center of the space now.
I thought, If I had a sword, a knife even, I could cut free of them.
There was part of a column left there, in the paving, like a splinter of bone left in a wound.
Zrenn came around my horse. He bowed, more of a safe distance from me than the last time.
“Dismount, Overlord,” he said.
Could 1 swing at him again? Get the short sword from his belt?
I knew I would not do it. I knew that no man could be quick enough, that they would have me down, disarm me, carefully not kill me. I would not give them that honey to sweeten their wine. I would not struggle with the fate they laid on me.
Someone bound me to the pillar stump.
With a deft stroke, Zrenn tore the velvet tunic across my breast. His eyes were slitted behind the mask. I could hear him breathing, quick as a dancer. This was the drink he had thirsted for.
He glanced around at the company, the princes and their men. He said, “There’s some story, is there not, that Vazkor could heal from any hurt. We shall see-” and a tiny slender knife flicked out in his narrow hand.
The first cut was like a silver razor or the sting of ice. He laughed and danced back at me, and the iron licked me again. I felt the blood flow. It was not particularly real. I said quietly, just loud enough for him to hear me, “You will never get a son this way, little man, spilling it in your drawers.”
That drove him mad, as I had meant it to, for in fact his pleasure was not quite of that order. He slashed me across the face and I felt my skin fold off from the bone. I had hoped he would open the neck vein, which would be quicker for me, but he missed it, from fury or cleverness. I was trying to plot the stages of my execution as they were, in order to outwit them, and I think I was part out of my head, for
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never before, and only one time since, have I been so negative, so dull on the outskirts of my death.
Abruptly Erran shouted, “Enough! Kortis, whistle off your hound; he’s stealing the meat.”
One of my eyes had gone blind with the running blood. One-eyed, I saw the statue of the goddess looked to be tottering. The solitary bird cawed, inside my brain now.
Erran had walked up to me to inspect Zrenn’s handiwork.
“These are elegant sculptings. If he heals for them, I shall truly consider the dead has risen from his tomb.” He spoke indifferently. Presently he added, “Well, Kortis. He is your captive. What now?”
“My messenger has already told you, my lords,” Kortis said. “If I am to make a show of him for you, you must pay me. And, like any thirfty merchant, I should prefer a portion of my fee in advance.”
“Odd to hear the great Phoenix bargain,” Erran said.
Nemarl said, “For a little sport, you can’t ask a high price.”
“A moment ago, you called it justice, my lord,” Kortis murmured. “But, no, I ask little. A friend’s measure of the yield of your southern fields, Nemarl. You recollect, I think, my plantings perished in the harsh weather, together with the slaves who might have saved them. From you, Erran, I ask less. You never knew Vazkor, your hate is necessarily more abstract. Give me the three foals your mares bore last spring.”
“By the yellow whore”-Erran jerked his thumb at the headless giant-woman-“I will give you one. And it is too much.”
“Two at least I will have,” Kortis said calmly.
Nemarl turned away, as if disgusted by their wrangling like tribal wives over a bronze pot. To this the lords of the cities had been reduced. I leaned on the pillar, my ears buzzing and my blood soaking in the fine tunic they had given me, listening as they haggled away their honor and my life.
Presently the chaffering stopped. They had agreed my worth and I had not listened to it.
They were mounting up, not bothering to take me with them, talking, as they did it, of some ceremony of justice here tomorrow, when they had seen how Zrenn’s carving had
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progressed, how much of Vazkor there might be hi me. Erran rode back to me.
I looked with my single eye at him, the other sealed fast.
“You speak the city tongue,” he said, “so the old Phoenix tells me. Speak then.”
I said, slowly, in order I should get it right, “May you eat dung and pass blood, and may the ravens squabble for your liver.”
“You will regret your good wishes, tomorrow,” he answered pleasantly, and spurred his horse away.