Shirley Meier & S. M. Stirling - Fifth Millenium 03 - The Cage

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Prologue

Habiku, you son of two brothers, I'm coming home. It's

taken me two damned years. Three shipwrecks, outrunning

pirates… You sold me off so far away you never thought I'd

escape or make it back. I hope you're alive so I can kill you.

Habiku Smoothtongue. Your flowery speeches arent going to

save you this time. Nothing will.

Chapter One

THE SLAF HIKARME COUNTING HOUSE BRAHVNIKI:

DELTA OF THE BREZHAN RIVER SVARTZEE, NORTH

SHORE

TENTH IRON CYCLE, THIRD DAY, YEAR OF THE

STEEL MOUSE

Late autumn, 4973 A.D.)

The clerk looked up from scattering sand on the page and

ostentatiously returned his attention to the ledger, trimming his

pen with a deft scrit-scrit against the razor fastened in the

mouth of the inkwell. One had to show this sort of poor trash

that the Slaf Hikarme was a respectable House. He looked down

his nose at the two women.

"I'm sorry, Teik," he said. "The Head Clerk is a very busy man.

Do you have an appointment?" There was a vast difference

between his side of the oak counter and theirs; a mercantile

house in a trading city dealt with many questionable types, of

necessity. Still, he was the guardian of the inner rooms, of

respectability, property, order, especially against unseemliness

like this—this ragamuffin.

The clientele were watching with interest, nine in a hall

meant for twenty. A pity the House had fallen into such financial

difficulty. The other two clerks kept their heads industriously

bent over their ledgers, but he could feel their attention as well.

He cleared his throat.

Oddly, the Zak woman who stood across the long wooden

divider that split the outer chamber seemed neither daunted nor

angry. Purebreed, he estimated, with a covert glance up from

under his lids. Disturbingly familiar, though he couldn't think

where he would have met such riffraff. Scarcely four feet tall,

skin pale under its weathered tan, eyes and hair raven-black;

none of the swagger you saw in a tavern bravo, but there were

well-used knives in her belt, two more in her boots and a stiletto

hilt peeking out from one sleeve. Plain dark grey tunic and

trousers and cloak, stained with salt spray.

Off a ship in from the Mitvald, then, even if her accent was

F'talezonian and that mother city of her race was far upriver.

Nothing unusual in Brahvniki.

The Zak sighed and crooked a finger. "The pen you've just

sharpened will do nicely." The clerk found himself handing it to

her. She snagged a scrap of paper out of the stack by his elbow,

ignoring his yip of, "That's expensive!", and wrote. She turned

the page around and pushed it across the desk so he could read

the words "Megan Whitlock, F'talezon, Owner Slaf Hikarme."

The collar of his mercantile robe seemed a bit tight, the room

too warm, even though he hadn't put a fresh scoopful of

blackrock on the stove in an hour. He took a deep breath. "Teik,"

he said, drawing strength from his position. "You must

understand that anyone could fake a signature. I'm sorry, Head

Clerk Vhsant is busy. I'm just doing my job." There hadn't been

someone claiming to be Whitlock for more than a year. The

owner was presumed, though not officially declared, dead.

The Zak looked back at her companion. "Even after he's seen

my signature, this officious person is telling me I can't walk into

my own office, Shkai'ra."

Now the one leaning against the lacquered inner door, that

one was unusual. Tall and fair-haired; well, a Thane or Aenir

might be so… but no folk he knew had quite that cast of feature,

slanted grey eyes over high cheeks, scimitar blade of nose with a

tiny gold ring through one nostril, pointed chin and wide,

thin-lipped mouth; and she was smiling at him.

Teeth and eyes pale against dark-tanned skin; not much more

than the mid-twenties of her Zak companion. Worn horse-hide

jacket and chamois pants, worn bone plaques on the long hilt of

her saber. One hand rested on the brass eagle-head pommel of

the sword, the other hooked a thumb through her belt;

thick-wristed hands, long fingers, thin white scars on the backs.

She was smiling and resting completely relaxed, ignoring the

two guards with their weighted staffs.

The blonde woman spoke. "You do him, Megan, or I?"

Guttural accent, staccato. Brahvniki was not a well-policed city,

and the Watch might be a while in arriving.

The Zak leaned forward and tapped on the wood with a

clawed finger. "You probably don't remember working for me,

Teik—Yareslav? You were only an underclerk then, but you

might recognize me if you think very hard. Don't make stupid

decisions on your own. I suggest that you call Vhsant

Cormarenc. " She was using the Head Clerks old use-name,

before the owner's proxy, Habiku, had elevated him to the

position. She knew names. Maybe… Great Bear, the Zak does

look uncannily like… No. The owner was dead. The two guards,

Bhodan and Anjevitch, watched with bovine patience from their

bench. Otherwise the stone chamber was as it always was, bare,

growing slightly seedy over these last two years of fading

prosperity. The others waiting their turn… Two glanced at each

other, stood, left in a casual stroll that grew hurried at the door.

Yareslav hoped they were going for the Watch. Svorbodin the

slaver glanced up from his laptop abacus, away, snapped his

glance back. A hurried whisper to his second, and they left,

sidling along the wall. The other five sought corners and leaned

back to watch.

His eyes fell. The Zak woman was digging her claws

impatiently into the hard oak of the counter, beside the lectern

that held his accountbook. Steel nails, not strapped on but

growing from the flesh: razor edged, hard steel, on small strong

hands with shackle-scars around the wrists. That was an

expensive operation; you needed an expert such as could only be

found in F'talezon, the Zak capital, and it had its drawbacks; the

iron was drawn from your blood, somehow. It took a certain type

of mind to want that sort of operation.

Very expensive, very rare. The nails went shriiink into the

wood, along his nerves, the hard wood splintering and fraying…

My counter, he thought.

Megan Whit lock had bought that peculiar sorcery. She had

been dead these past two years, he repeated to himself, Habiku

had said so. This woman couldn't be… Trembling, his hand went

under the counter, tugged at a hidden string. She was close

enough, across the counter, close enough for him to scent the

woodsmoke and salt in the cloak, like any poor client of the

House bringing their smells in among books and ink and

counting-beads.

"Teik—" he stammered.

The door behind him opened with a gust of warm stale air. A

voice boomed. Vhsant, the office supervisor. Oh, Sacred Bear,

Honey-Giving One, thank you, thank you, Yareslav thought.

The Zak was looking beyond him. "Well, Vhsant, you petit

larceny piss-ant, are you going to recognize me?" The junior

clerk eased himself thankfully off the stool and moved carefully

aside.

The Head Clerk sat down, almost smoothly. He was a heavy

man but not fat, bearded. He waited a moment, meeting the

Zak's eyes before speaking; his voice was soft, the pale scribe's

face calm, but Yareslav knew he had recognized the founder of

the House. Whitlock. It is. Yareslav started edging away. When

she found out what had happened while she was gone… Under

the edge of the counter, where she couldn't see it, Vhsant's hand

slowly clenched. Yareslav saw a slight sheen of sweat at his

hairline.

He's shaken, the underclerk thought. I've never seen him this,

ah, flustered before.

"Woman," the Head Clerk told the Zak, without waiting for

her to say any more. "You have some superficial resemblance to

the unfortunately deceased owner of the House of the Sleeping

Dragon. If you think you can take advantage of a slight

resemblance to Megan Whitlock, and take over a thriving

business, you are mistaken. Guards, expel them."

Bhodan and Anjevitch rose and stepped forward; they were

brother and sister, peasants expelled from the Benai—the

Abbey's—lands for brawling. They were as tall as the blonde

foreigner who stood between them and Megan Whitlock, more

massive, with arms and shoulders that had rolled logs, wrestled

young bulls, cleared rocks from fields. They had the instincts of

professionals; they spread, wasting no time on words, coming in

on the foreigner from either side with staffs swinging, ready for

their opponent to break the peace-bond seal on her saber.

Yareslav watched, fascinated.

Clack. The sister's staff struck the scabbarded blade the

blonde stranger had drawn, sheath and all, from her belt-loops.

Tack, the foreign woman touched down again from the leap that

had taken her over the metal-shod ashwood Bhodan swung at

her knees. She turned, pivoted on the balls of her feet toward the

brother, moving with a smooth leopard grace that made the

siblings look heavy, slow. The brass pommel of the saber snaked

out behind her, struck the top of Anjevitch's kneecap with the

sound of a butcher's mallet breaking bone. She wailed, doubled,

her face coming down to meet a booted heel striking backward

and up. There was a crackling like small twigs thrown on a hot

fire and the peasant sank to her knees, one hand pressed to her

face. She reached a trembling hand to the floor, slid down and

lay still, moaning.

A few hardy spectators remained, backing out of the blonde

woman's way as Bhodan roared, advancing with blow after blow

that would have splintered oak. Somehow the staff never quite

seemed to reach the figure that backed before him. She spun,

holding the sheathed sword in both hands. It snaked out in

deflection-parries against the wood staff that would have

snapped it with a square blow. A moment, and the remaining

guard thrust his weapon in a move that should have pinned her

against the wall behind. Instead, it pinned him, as the steel tip

clanked immovably against the wall for a single crucial instant.

The saber hilt punched up two-handed, struck his nose; he

felt something crumble in the forepart of his head, and the room

blurred. A looping foot coming at him, impossible angle, impact

like an explosion on the side of his head. He sagged, as the world

slipped sideways. He fell to lie next to his sister.

Yareslav, backed against one of the locked cabinets, heard a

choked-off sound from his superior. Vhsant was still sitting at

the stool, but Megan was sitting as well. On the counter, with

her fingertips resting on the middle-aged clerk's bull throat,

fingers and thumb along the line of the arteries and dimpling

the soft flesh without quite cutting it. Or… As he watched, a slow

red trickle started out from beneath the little finger.

Megan looked at it in annoyance. "Nicked. Have to file it out."

She glanced over her shoulder. Bhodan was still conscious, after

a fashion; the blonde woman stood over him, saber in one hand,

a boot on his neck below the Adam's apple; she was still wearing

the same slight smile, and gradually increasing the pressure.

"Shkai'ra!"

She glanced up.

"That is, in a manner of speaking, my employee." Megan's

face was an angry mask, her tone dry, and her hand flexed

slightly, harmlessly, bringing a sudden explosive gasp from

Vhsant as he felt the outer layer of skin nick and part under the

razor edges.

"Killjoy, " Shkai'ra replied, with a disappointed shrug. She

lifted the boot.

The Zak woman slid forward. Vhsant gagged and somehow

got off the stool; Megan eased forward just enough and her hand

never moved from his throat. The other two clerks had backed

against the wall, and one made a small sound of protest. Megan

ignored him and stared into the Head Clerk's eyes.

"You," she said. "As I understand it from rumors I heard on

board ship and in the city, and the evidence of my own eyes,

have been dealing with slavers. " Vhsant tried to shake his head,

and stopped, very quickly. "You have been using my name and

seals to do some—shall we say, less than moral things. It might

be that this was all Habiku's idea, so I might give you the benefit

of the doubt. My doorkeeper dead? Two hired strong-arms

needed inside? Barely enough business to support three clerks

instead of a half-dozen? Vhsant, I won't fire you yet, not until I

know more about what's going on, but I think I should have a

very good look at what you've been doing." He tried to speak,

stopped again as she tsked and shook her head. "Slavers, Vhsant.

You know that I hated slavers before. That hatred's gone a bit

deeper. Maybe you should see what it is to be a slave?" She

raised her free hand in front of his face. A red glow built around

her fingers, reflected in his eyes.

"You've never been on a tight-pack slave ship, have you,

Vhsant?" Megan's voice was as pale as her face. "You don't know

what you've been selling people into. I think you should." He

paled, started to sweat, made a convulsive movement. "I spent

three days in a middle rank, before we were exercised," Megan

said conversationally, though she was breathing hard, white

lines of tension around her eyes. "I had a corpse on one side, a

child with dysentery above…"

He was swallowing, his skin turning a pale greyish-green, his

eyes locked on something only he could see reflected in the glow

of her hand. Then he crumpled, closing his eyes, flinging a hand

up to block what he saw, crying, "No, make it go away! Please,

Teik Megan, Zar Whitlock—"

"Yareslav!"

Her voice cracked out, and the underclerk felt her attention

shift for a moment. "Fetch my seals. NOW!" The clerk scrabbled

at the officer-supervisor's belt, grabbed the key and scurried into

the office. From the open door Megan could hear the rattle and

creak as the strongbox was unlocked, the hurried scuffle as he

searched for the seals, the slam as the lid came down again. He

almost ran across the room and put the House seal and her

personal seal on the counter beside her.

"Very prompt," she said and dropped her hands. "I'm glad

you recognized me, Vhsant. I'm also glad you've kept my

persona] seal. Green jade is expensive. " He raised his head out

of shaking hands. She slid down from the counter.

"Until I know more, you're on leave from any work in my

House. Get this mess cleaned up, then get out, until I call you

back, if I call you back. Yareslav, I saw the healer's sign still up

on the corner; I think the two Shkai'ra downed will need him."

The junior clerk bowed. Megan looked up, one corner of her

mouth quirked into a smile; Shkai'ra had transferred her foot to

Bhodan's chest. "You can let him up now, Shkai'ra. He's finally

realizing that he really does work for me!" The Kommanza

grinned back at her.

The blonde hung her sheathed sword back on her belt and

rose, giving her wrists and arms a brief, businesslike shake. "If

this is the quality of the opposition, it'll be easier than you

thought," she said.

"I wouldn't judge by this and get too superior," the Zak said.

"It won't all be this easy." Megan strode toward the office at the

back, then stopped. "I'm closing this office for the rest of the

day," she said, looking at the two remaining clients in the outer

office, who were still watching as Shkai'ra walked away from the

moaning guard. "Accept my apologies, teikas. All transactions

are suspended until I clean House."

Megan and Shkai'ra paused under the carved blackwood sign

outside, after the Zak locked the door and stuck the keys in her

belt, waiting for the street to be cleared. In front of the Slaf

Hikarme's counting house the drivers of two oxcarts, one piled

high with round cheeses, the other bulging with bales of wool,

stood and waved their goads and yelled insults over which of

them had right of way. Around them the street bustled;

wool-capped sailors jostled on the narrow, split-log way that

kept everyone up out of the delta mud; buildings of timber and

rubble and brick leaned out to almost meet overhead. A juggler

in bright robes balanced improbable things thrown him by his

audience at one corner, of the ex-whorehouse. A squad of the

Watch trailed by, bored shopkeepers and artisans in rusty

kettle-helmets and leather corselets, their polearms canted every

which way; one carelessly snagged the backhook of her halberd

in a line of washing and yanked, dumping the laundry in the

mud. Curses and a flung chamberpot followed.

Shkai'ra noticed the Rand first for his robe; it was

ankle-length, of blue silk and embroidered with dragons in

thread of gold and silver, with garnets and lapis for eyes and

scales. Wouldn't mind having that myself, she mused. Too short

for her, the man's head only came to her eye-level, but it could be

made over into a nice coat. Quick thump on the head and . . .

No, not here. The man wasn't bad-looking either, supple

saffron-skinned handsomeness, with a cat on his shoulder…

Not a cat. Cat looking, with Siamese points, but the tail… the

tail was like a monkey's, loosely curled around the man's throat.

At first she thought it was wrapped in a toast-brown fur; then it

unfurled one three-foot wing and fanned the air, knocking off a

sailor's hat and receiving a resentful glare. Bat-style wing, with a

claw on the leading edge and the skin webbing between

elongated finger bones. The Rand reached up and tickled it

under the chin; the eyes slitted and it purred for a moment, then

crouched with its wings stretched back. The man let his hand

fall, and the cat-thing sprang into the air, dropped, caught itself

with a thunderclap wingbeat, thrashed its way aloft through the

narrow ways of the rooftops and soared with late afternoon

sunlight on its wings, a plaintive meeorrow trailing behind.

"What is that thing?"

"Hmm? What? Oh, that. It's a flitter or wingcat." Megan

shrugged. "Expensive this far south. You can pay a hunter a

month's wage for a flitterkitten. Luxury item."

Shkai'ra stood looking up at the soaring feline musingly. "Hell

on pigeons."

THE KCHNOTET VURM, BRAHVNIKI EVENING

Megan leaned on the window of their room and looked out at

Brahvniki, down at the grey slate and brown thatched roofs

fading into shadow patterns in the long shadows of autumn

twilight. The towers of The Kreml on the highest point were like

teeth against the cloudy sky, onion domes, patterned tile and

gilding. The street beneath, bustling with Bravnikians hurrying

home, was cobbled with worn round stones from the river.

Faintly she could hear the wooden flute of a street musician over

the rumble of hooves and boots and the shrill groaning of an

oxcart's ungreased wheels. A working port, full of smells of sea

and the silty odors of the great river. She craned her neck to see

the white dome of the outermost spire of the Benai across the

river.

Behind her, Shkai'ra Mek Kermak's-kin put hands to hips and

pivoted a slow circle on one heel. "Best room?" she asked. All the

furnishings were old but sound, like the inn itself. There were

deep troughs in the oak doorsill, foot-worn. The Kchnotet Vurm

wasn't the best in the city but it certainly wasn't the worst; what

had Megan said—ah yes, the "noisiest." Around her feet a

battered black tomcat wound, blinked, seemed to stretch out in

an arc that landed on the bed; there he sat like a small idol, eyes

slitted, forefeet kneading happily into the softness.

"Dah." Megan came in and closed the shutter so the

candleflame steadied.

"We've had better," the Kommanza continued. Although they

had known what she meant when she asked for an armor stand;

no matter how carefully you packed a suit, it was better for the

lacings if you stood it upright. She stood back to admire hers

standing in the corner, the liquid shine of the black-lacquered

surfaces and scarlet trim. Then she gave the fiberglass backings

a quick inspection; they could come loose from the bullhide if

the glue went moldy, and all the gods knew it had been trouble

enough dragging it from the other side of the Lannic. The

watertight chest had saved their lives once though, keeping them

afloat through a shipwreck.

"And worse," Megan said. "At least we're not head to heels

with seventeen other travelers." Megan was unpacking her

personal chest; books, scrolls, curios, a collection of knives

ranging from tiny things that could be bent into a beltbuckle or

held concealed in a palm to miniature shorts words. Last of all, a

needlesword with a bell guard. She considered it almost

distastefully, then leaned it against the wall by the bed. "Much

worse, if—" She stopped and clapped a hand to her forehead as

Shkai'ra set up a small six-armed joss on the windowledge. "Oh,

no, no more sacrifices in our bedroom!"

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摘要：

PrologueHabiku,yousonoftwobrothers,I'mcominghome.It'stakenmetwodamnedyears.Threeshipwrecks,outrunningpirates…YousoldmeoffsofarawayyouneverthoughtI'descapeormakeitback.Ihopeyou'realivesoIcankillyou.HabikuSmoothtongue.Yourfloweryspeechesarentgoingtosaveyouthistime.Nothingwill.ChapterOneTHESLAFHIKARMEC...

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Shirley Meier & S. M. Stirling - Fifth Millenium 03 - The Cage

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