Greg Keyes - The Python King's Treasure

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J Gregory Keyes - The Python King's Treasure

Fool Wolf only had a few days left to live when he saw the most beautiful

woman he had ever laid eyes upon.

Her hair was spun black glass, spilling down the sides of a face incised

from amber, flowing over shoulders and down breasts of the same red-gold hue.

He was too far away to see what color her eyes were, but he could feel her

gaze on him. She stood on the edge of a cliff, half a bow-shot above him,

looking down at the jade sea and the cinnamon sun it was swallowing in the

west.

And at him, on the desolate strand, fifteen days along the way to

starvation.

He stood rooted, stunned, watching her naked lithe half-shadow in the

melting sunlight.

<<She is pretty,>> the goddess imprisoned in him sighed, wistfully. <<She

looks good enough to eat.>>

Fool Wolf's stomach growled in agreement.

A month earlier, in the Land of Nine Princes, in the many-tiered city of

Fanva, Fool Wolf had been considerably better fed. He had arrived in Fanva

with a single carnelian and two copper coins, fleeing from the blood-guttered

city of Rumq Qaj. In the incense-choked gambling temples of Fanva, he had

increased that jewel and those two coins into what was for him a small

fortune. He took a room in a good inn, draped himself in silk, and feasted on

roast pork, pheasant, peacock, and eel. He ate sweet fruits from the

islands-Lorn, whitemelon, fernpears, bananas. He drank wines he could not name

but which pleased him a great deal, and he bedded a series of women of the

same sort.

His fortunes changed, of course. He was caught cheating by one of the

gambling-house priests. As gambling was a religious matter in Fanva, and

cheating sacrilege, he was sentenced to death.

While bets were being placed on which form of death would be chosen and how

long he would survive, Fool Wolf escaped his would-be-executioners and fled

into the Gibbering Quarter, where foreign diplomats and madmen lived. He

eluded his pursuit through the open window of a third-story apartment, waiting

breathlessly for distance to hush their cries and footsteps, alert for any

movement by the occupants of his refuge.

None came, and after five hundred heartbeats, he began to explore. It was a

large place, well furnished with exotic rugs, censers of gold and

cream-colored ivory, screens of lacquered wood and stippled velum. It smelled

strange, like burnt sugar candy and wet dog.

And books, everywhere. Crammed into shelves, littered on the rugs and

polished wooden floors, piled on low sitting-desks.

Behind one of those desks sat a dead man. He hadn't been dead long-drool was

still leaking from his mouth. His flesh was still warm.

Fool Wolf could see no obvious reason why the man died, unless it was the

small, empty cordial glass on the table before him. Suicide by poison, or just

a last drink before dying from some natural cause? Probably the first-aside

from being dead, the corpse did not look unhealthy. In fact, he looked

something like an older Fool Wolf-tall and lean, narrow of face with sharp,

high cheekbones, long black hair plaited into a queue.

That meant the dead man's clothes would probably fit Fool Wolf. He began

rummaging about the apartment and shortly found a closet full of green robes.

He took one and found it fit rather well, so he cast about for further items

of disguise. A turban, of course, and something with which to make a false

beard, perhaps.

He congratulated himself on his luck. It looked as if no one else lived

here-there were no woman's clothes, no servants' quarters. The dead man seemed

to have lived alone. He could keep his head down here until the pursuit

cooled.

He had just settled onto a comfortable cushion with a plate of olives when

the door splintered inward. Fool Wolf froze, an olive halfway to his mouth.

Standing in the doorframe was a rather large man in a black fighting sarong

and loose, blood-red shirt. His arms, visible from the elbow, were covered in

elaborate tattoos. On his forehead was a single tattoo, the glyph of a tiger

chasing its own tail. A long, curved sword gleamed in his sash.

The black-clad man walked into the room, followed by two hulking eunuchs

that made him look like a dwarf, and ten guardsmen behind them. All had the

tiger tattoo.

"Lohar Pang?" The man in black said. It sounded something like a question.

Fool Wolf pursed his lips. The corpse was in the next room. If they went in

there ...

"Of course," he replied. "Lohar Pang, at your service."

"Wonderful. You will come with us."

"I'm busy at the moment," Fool Wolf replied, bowing.

"Ah. My apologies," the man in black said. "I misspoke. You will come with

us, or you will die."

"Oh," Fool Wolf said, "this is a day for misstatement, for I'm not busy at

all. Shall we go?"

Fool Wolf had heard of Prince Fa-few in Fanva had not. He wasn't one of the

nine princes, but he was a merchant of considerable power and reportedly dark

tastes. He looked about sixty, with a trim beard and sooty eyes. He wore a

robe so deeply red it was almost black, bordered with twining serpents and

eels picked out in garnet. His throne was of heavy dun wood and would have

been rather plain if not for the human skulls along the armrests and high

back. Into each skull twenty or so nails had been driven. Fool Wolf suspected

that this had been done when the heads were still breathing and blinking and

screaming.

Prince Fa frowned down at Fool Wolf, then examined his long, gold-leafed

nails. "This should be a simple task, for one of your repute," the prince

said, flashing teeth like bits of polished abalone. "You have familiarized

yourself with the- problem-and with the gods in question? You examined the

objects I sent you?"

"Absolutely," Fool Wolf said, wondering what in the name of the Horse Mother

prince Fa was talking about.

"And you still say you can do it?"

"Of course. I have no doubts."

"Good. Then you will live. You will depart immediately." He leaned forward,

and his shadowed eyes caught the flicker of a candle flame, a red fish in deep

water. "If I have to take a hand in this myself, I will be most displeased,"

Fa murmured. "I detest the sea. You understand the consequences if I am forced

to do something I hate?"

"Of course, Prince Fa," Fool Wolf said, wondering what the consequences

were, imagining they were unpleasant.

"Good. One of my yachts is prepared to leave."

It occurred to Fool Wolf that a trip by boat would at least get him far from

the city. After that-well, there would surely be opportunities.

A week later, he was still watching for the first of those hypothetical

opportunities. More specifically, he was gazing at the horizon, wondering how

big the ocean could be.

Too big to swim, he kept coming back to. So even though he was unwatched by

the crew-somewhat avoided, even-there was no place to escape to.

Kreth-the black-saronged warrior from the apartment- joined him at the rail.

"Not much farther," Kreth said, spitting onto the sky-dressed sea, watching

the little foam island thus created break up in the ship's wake. "Can you

really do it?"

"I've never failed before," Fool Wolf assured him.

"Obviously. But you've never been to Ranga Lehau before, either," Kreth

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Greg Keyes - The Python King's Treasure

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