I thrust him back, the blade going like two or three meteors, and he grinned as he retreated.
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“Better,” he said, “better, my Vazkor,” and he jumped sideways so only the tip of the alcum kissed his shoulder.
“You shall have better yet,” I said, and cut under his guard, hitting him in the forearm. I had not intended this five minutes ago, but my warrior past was catching up to me.
I did not want to kill him, and maybe I should not have done, though by now the fat was near enough the fire to burn of itself.
As he was closing with me, I heard a man cough beyond the torches. Not a sound to alert anyone, unless he had heard that unique noise before, unlike any other-the choke a man must give when a knife blocks his windpipe.
Sorem apparently recognized it, too. Instantly we fell apart, staring through the glare of red iron, our pedantic fight suspended in the face of quick reality.
They did not keep us waiting, the fourteen men in their garments of black.
Sorem had brought four companions with him, I just one. If we had reckoned on treachery, it should have been from each other. But here stood fourteen men who had crept hi on us, garbed for night work, and around their feet lay four dead jerdiers, Sorem’s officers, dispatched with professional competence. Only Lyo stood upright and unharmed, gaping at me, as well he might.
One of the black cloaks stepped forward. “Lord prince, your pardon for this interruption.” Then he turned to me a battered, shuttered blob of features, myopic to life, a look I had seen often on the faces of professional homicides. “Sorcerer. Your pardon also. But I’ve been watching the duel and it seemed somewhat dilatory. Perhaps you’d like my help in ridding yourself of the prince. How would it be if two of my men held him while you ran him through? Much less exhausting, I’m positive you’ll agree.” He snapped his fingers, and someone tossed him a velvet bag that clinked. “Then there’s this,” he said. “We heard your price was high. My master-nameless, I fear, as all good masters are-offers you one hundred gold chains, here in the bag. Feel free to count them. You understand, of course, that having slam one of the Blood Royal, it would be wise for you to leave the city? Though, I may add, the Emperor will not weep long for this unfavorite son. Three or four months, say, and you’ll receive a pardon.”
Obviously, they, too, had had their doubts as to whether I should kill Sorem. It appeared that someone wanted him
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killed very badly. They intended to aid me and let me take the blame. Possibly silence me, too, later on, to consolidate their lord’s innocence. I had a high price, did I? Higher, maybe, than they anticipated.
I glanced at Sorem. He thought himself finished, but he stood there, contemplating us, his eyes like blue hell, ready to take as many as he might into the dark with him.
“Well, sir,” I said to the black cloak, “I appreciate your kindness. But I prefer to settle my own accounts.” I swung the sword and stabbed it in his guts and twisted it, for all those men I guessed he owed the pleasure of his pain. As he fell, squirming and crying, I unleashed the force that had started up in me. It went from my palms and from my eyes, searing and half stunning me, that white light of Power.
Then, my gaze clearing, I saw ten corpses taking their ease on the turf, and three survivors gathered about Sorem in a squall of knives. My brain for the moment seemed spent of its energy; besides, he was in the thick of them, and I could not aim and miss him. The black cloaks were screaming as they fought, terrified, yet sworn to his murder.
A sword is no weapon to meet knives, too large and slow. I ran and pulled a man back and sliced open his neck for him. One struggled on Sorem’s blade, trying to extricate himself, to ignore the mortal wound and go on living. Sorem held him aside, and kicked the legs of the second man from under him. As he went down, the other also crashed over, taking the sword with him out of Sorem’s grasp. Sorem turned and saw the kicked man on the ground, who was surging up again with his knife poised for throwing. A pale shaft erupted from Sorem’s eyes, the lightning flash that had hit me earlier. To observe it in another was uncanny. The black cloak rolled sideways from the blow, and got his own blade in the chest as he fell. Then Sorem dropped to his knees and hung his head like an exhausted hound.
6
The dead lay everywhere. Only Lyo had remained alive, and he was gone. I did not altogether blame him for that. I made sure of the black cloaks swiftly. I even found the
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bag of “gold,” checked it and discovered it to be full of pebbles and the gilt imitation coins with which children play.
The night had grown abruptly soundless; even the sea held its breath. Then the nightingales began again, eastward and west, four or five of them, indifferent, as they had a right to be, to the battles of men.
Sorem had recovered himself a little and pulled himself to sit, his back against a juniper tree. I did not know the extent to which they were trained in the temple precincts of the south, if he could heal his own skin. But the wound I had given him in the forearm still bled; his sleeve was scarlet from it. Stunning the last of the black cloaks with Power had left him half dead himself. With some surprise, I became aware that I felt no debility, as I had before when I had used Power not to disarm but to take life. It seemed I had outstripped my own humanity yet once more.
I crossed to Sorem, and he said, “Some god must be laughing somewhere.”
“Some god is always laughing. That is, if you believe in them, which is surely enough to make them laugh.”
“What now?” he said.
“If you’re able, close that wound. If not, I will.”
“Will you?” he said, and smiled slightly. I saw he could not help himself and I set my hand on his arm, and watched the skin draw and refashion itself till only a faint bluish mark was left there under the rusty sleeve. He gazed at it a while, then he said, “I perceive I am the novice and Vazkor the master magus. But you puzzle me. For so much gold, why not let them kill me? No doubt they were not to be trusted, but with such talents you have no need to fear black assassins. My thanks for your aid, but why?”
“Why not?” I said. “I don’t hanker for your death. Neither am I to be priced so readily, like the bull hi the market, and certainly not with trash coins.”
“There may be others searching for me. My life’s a debt I owe Basnurmon. You had best get going and leave me, unless you want to tangle in court matters.”
“Consider me tangled. On your own, you could hardly hold off the ravens. Do the priests teach you no healing?”
“Some,” he said, and shut his eyes, which were swimming from weakness, “but the other is simpler to learn and refurbish. It’s always more simple to harm than to cure.”
I placed my palms on his shoulders, and let the healing pass into him. I felt it go this time, yet no lessening in myself.
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The matter between us was changed. He saw, as I did, that the enmity, the sparring of two hawks who meet in the sky and suppose it their business to fight, was a thing of smoke that had blown over.
I showed him the bag of mock gold.
“Now tell me,” I said. “Who is this shyster Basnurmon that seeks your life and wants me as his unpaid dupe?”
“Yes,” he said slowly, “I owe you that at least.” Feeling his strength return and partly astonished at the recovery, he was at sea, and took a moment to collect himself. The torches were guttering and the light came and went across the empty dueling place and the bodies sprinkled there. He looked at those, and then he said, “You understand that my father is the Emperor, Hragon-Dat. His seed began me and I carry his title; beyond that, nothing. He got me on my mother when she was barely a woman. She was his first wife then. They were cousins, both of the Hragon blood, but she was as proud as he, and he did not like her pride. Nor does he now. After me, there was no other child. I think she took care there should not be. Presently he put her aside, and chose another wife to be Empress of the Lilies, not royal, but out of one of the priestly families. This bitch gave him three males. Now he’s finished with her, too, but she keeps him sweet by acting as his procuress, selecting for him boys and girl children scarce old enough to walk, let alone bed. Of the two empresses my mother is named second, his cast-off. Me, he has disowned in favor of the first son he had by his priestess-wife-this son, the heir, is Basnurmon. And here is the stumbling block. The whole city knows I am pure Hragon stock come down from Masrianes the Conqueror on both sides, sire and dam. Basnurmon is Hragon only through the sire, his priestess mother has none of it. This makes him anxious. All my life there have been plots. I am safer in the Citadel among the jerds than in the Emperor’s Crimson Palace. I can imagine that hearing of my challenge to you, Basnurmon must have wanted a say in things. He thought he could be rid of me tonight, once and for all. The Field of the Lion is common dueling ground, no trouble to his dogs to find me here, and I was too much a fool to dream of it.” “And when he learns he’s not rid of you, what?”