Flight to Opar

  "So you are Hadon," she said. "The man who should have been Emperor, consort of our high priestess, if the Voice of Kho had not decreed otherwise. And you," she said, staring at Lalila, "are the Witch-from-the-Sea. Suguqateth tells me that you carry one in your belly who is destined for great things—if she is born in the treasure city of Opar. We will see what we can do to get you there."

  Hadon had read her signature. He said, "Karsuh, you seem to have been waiting for us. Apparently the news about us has raced ahead of us, though we were in the swiftest ship on the two seas."

  "No, Hadon," she said, "we were not waiting for anyone in particular. A watch is always kept here; this is a station in the secret message-transient system. It is true, however, that we have heard something about you. Four days ago a swift naval galley docked here. Admiral Poedy received a message from Minruth. It warned the admiral that Awineth, Hadon and others could possibly be on the way to Rebha. There was no positive data to this effect. It was just that the authorities at Rebha should be on the lookout for you. Minruth thought you might try to flee Khokarsa if Awineth's forces suffered defeat. There was no description of your ship, Ruseth, which is fortunate. But that does not mean there won't be."

  "If we could get provisioned tonight, we could leave before dawn," Hadon said.

  "That won't be possible," Karsuh said. "We can get a certain amount of food into the ship tonight. But there is so much patrol activity now that a large amount being moved at one time would be certain to attract attention. It will take several days. You see, Admiral Poedy fears—and rightly—that there are many people loyal to Awineth in Rebha. These don't include most of the great merchants who live on Rebha, and Poedy is certain that the majority of his officers are faithful to Minruth. It is the lower classes, the fisherfolk, the sailors, the laborers, the smugglers of Rebha whom he mistrusts. So he keeps patrols busy at all hours, especially at night. That is why we have to move slowly and circumspectly."

  "In fact, if he should discover that the Temple of Piqabes is aiding Hadon and Lalila, he would arrest every priestess in the city. He is looking for an excuse, though he realizes the dangers. Perhaps he even hopes for an uprising,, since that would give him a chance to clean out the slums. We know through our spies that he has marked at least three thousand men and women for death, people whom he suspects of criminal activity or subversion. Rightly, I might add."

  "How long will the restocking take?" Ruseth said.

  "From what you've told me of your lack of supplies, about three nights," Karsuh said. "In the meantime, we must hide your ship. Even with the mast stepped down, its lines are obviously unfamiliar. An inspector would know at once that it had entered illegally. If such a vessel had come in through proper channels, he would have heard about it, you may be sure of that."

  "I must know where you're taking the ship," Hadon said, "in case we have to leave suddenly; we'd be in a bad situation if we didn't even know where the ship was."

  "It'll be in an enclosed dock ten piles west and thirty north of this pile," the priestess said. "My men will take it there. Come, let's get out of here."

  The woman leading, holding a fish-oil lantern, they walked along the dock until they came to the bottom of a wooden staircase which wound upward into the darkness. They climbed swiftly, pausing on three landings to catch their breaths. At the top, they found themselves in a narrow street. Here, above the city, the sky was cloudless except for a half-veiled moon. On both sides rose unpainted wooden houses three stories high. The windows on the street level were shuttered; the doors looked solid and were fitted with massive bronze locks. The windows on the upper stories were open. The far corner of the street was dimly lit and, when they arrived there, they saw two giant torches burning on stanchions before the door of a large building. As they passed it they heard sounds of revelry from within. Over the doorway was a large board on which was painted the head of a beach baboon. This marked the hall where sailors of this totem could stay and where Rebha citizens of the same totem gathered for social events.

  The priestess led them on, up a flight of steps alongside a ramp to a higher level. Hadon tried to memorize the route, but the darkness and the many turnings and climbings and descents confused him. He wondered at the absence of people at this early hour. Karsuh told him that there was a curfew.

  "Poedy imposed it two months ago, ostensibly to prevent any more rioting. It also makes it easier to control criminal activities. Anyone caught out after dusk is automatically convicted, except for provable emergencies, of course."

  She stopped. "Oh, oh!"

  A light had suddenly illuminated the corner of the street about a hundred yards down. It swiftly became stronger.

  "The patrol!"

  17.

  She turned and ran by them, and they hastened after her. Kebiwabes, who was carrying the sleeping Abeth, began to fall behind. Hadon took the child from him. The party fled back up the steps until it came to the previous junction. There they turned to the north and walked swiftly until Karsuh halted.

  "This is the Street of the Overturned Hives," she said.

  She rapped on the door of a run-down structure, giving three quick beats with her fist, then six, then nine. She waited and presently somebody on the other side of the door rapped twelve times. Karsuh struck the door three times.

  Just then lights flared strongly at the junction. Several men, their bronze helmets, cuirasses and spearpoints gleaming in torchlight, stepped into the open. A few seconds later lights appeared at the other end of the street, and a second patrol appeared in the junction there. The party was caught between the two.

  Chains rattled behind the door. Karsuh said, "For our sakes, lovers of Kho, open quickly."

  A chain banged; a bolt was withdrawn; wood squealed against wood as if a bar had been fitted into too tight arms. A patrolman shouted, his cry echoed by the group at the other junction. At the same time both patrols began running toward the group in front of the door.

  It swung open suddenly. The priestess' lamp showed a man clad only in a kilt, clutching a short sword, blinking. Behind him was a narrow hall with walls of peeling paint and a stairway halfway down it.

  "Karsuh!" the man said. He stepped back, and the refugees poured in.

  "The patrol!" Karsuh said. "They're after us! Lock the door!"

  The man quickly obeyed, though he had just shot the bronze bolt when men hammered on the other side.

  "Open in the name of the Emperor Minruth and his vicar, Admiral Poedy!"

  "There's little time for explanation!" Karsuh said to the man. "These people are important! This is Hadon of Opar; you know of him. This woman and her child are under the protection of Kho Herself."

  The door shook under hard buffetings. Suddenly a spear-point rammed an inch through the wood. Lights appeared in the hallway and at the top of the stairway. Men, women and children looked out from the doors and the steps.

  "Gahoruphi," the priestess continued, "you'll have to move everybody out of here. The soldiers will call in help and seize everyone. Poedy is looking for a chance to make an example of those who resist him. It'll be the crocodiles for all of you, even the children!"

  "I know," Gahoruphi said. He turned and shouted at the people who were now filling the hall. Hadon wondered where they had all come from; they must have been stacked in their rooms.

  A fat naked woman nursing an infant gestured at the priestess, who told the others to follow her. They single-filed down the hall between armed men and up the creaking stairway. The blows on the door were getting louder and more frequent. Hadon looked back down the steps. The head of an ax crashed through the wood. It was withdrawn, and Gahoruphi stabbed his spear through the hole. A man cried out. Gahoruphi withdrew his spear and shouted, "First blood!" Lalila said to the priestess, "Won't they be massacred?"

  "Some will be killed," Karsuh said. "But the rest will follow us through secret ways to the temple."

  Abeth, who had been silent with terror since being so savagely aw
akened, now began to cry. Lalila took her and comforted her.

  On the hallway of the second story, others poured out of the rooms. The reek of unwashed bodies filled the air, and shouts and questions dinned around them. The priestess stopped to tell them to follow her, Hadon, however, grabbed her by the arm.

  "Why should we run?" he said. "There are still only a few soldiers outside. Why can't we kill them before they call more and then dump their bodies into the sea?"

  There was a crash from below as the door fell in. The clang of blades and the cries of injured men arose.

  "I will take the woman and the child to the temple!" Karsuh said. She called to the fat woman, whose baby was bawling loudly. "Hinqa! You stay here until Hadon is forced to run, then lead him to the temple."

  Lalila gave a despairing look at Hadon, as if she did not expect to see him again. Then she hurried away down the hall and up another flight of steps. Presumably she would go to the roof and across it to wherever the priestess led her.

  The manling Paga hesitated for a moment. He was evidently torn between his desire to fight by Hadon's side and his desire to make sure that Lalila was safe. Hadon pointed his sword at Lalila, saying, "She will need a man to guard her, Paga, if I should fall."

  The scribe and the bard looked longingly after Lalila. They wanted to get away from the bloodshed to come, but they were not cowards and so would do their duty.

  Hadon rammed his way down the stairs through the crowd. Kebiwabes and Hinokly followed him. The hall was jammed with men trying to get at the soldiers, who had advanced only a few feet into the house. Hadon, seeing that the situation made it impossible for him to help, retreated. He fought his way back through the screaming women and children to the second floor. There he went to the window overlooking.the street and opened its wooden shutters. Below were about two dozen soldiers. Two were blowing bronze whistles to call in more patrols.

  By now the windows all along the streets, as far as he could see, were lit. Heads protruded from them, and there were even citizens out on the street, some with lamps, some with torches. All carried swords, axes or knives.

  Hadon went into the nearest apartment, two rooms with blankets on the floor for beds, and rushed through them to stop at the window and look down. The street just below him was unoccupied. The soldiers were all crowding around the door or hammering at the shutters on the windows with spears and axes.

  Kebiwabes, Hinokly, Ruseth and his four sailors entered a moment later. Hadon said, "Follow me!" and, he let himself out of the window. After dangling for a moment at arm's length, he dropped. He brushed against the side of the house, shoved with his hands, propelled himself a little away. His long legs, bent, took the impact easily. And then he had his tenu, Karken, Tree of Death, out of its scabbard. Its edge cut into the back of a soldier, then into another and another. The head of a fourth fell on the planks; the arm of a fifth thumped into it.

  A spearman turned then, his mouth opening to cry alarm, his weapon turning toward Hadon. Karken severed the head of the weapon from the shaft and the head of the man from the trunk. Ruseth joined him then, picking up a spear from a fallen man and driving it into the throat of a man just turning around.

  Men came running from doorways up and down the streets, emboldened by this attack on the patrol. Within two minutes it was all over for the two dozen soldiers.

  But their whistles had called in more patrolmen. From a distance came shouts and shrill replying whistles, and the light of many torches lit the tops of houses some streets away. It was at this moment, as the mob that had spilled out of the houses into the street suddenly became quiet, that the wind struck the city of Rebha.

  One moment all was stillness, as if a sack had been jammed down over everyone. The noise of the approaching patrolmen was still distant. The next moment the wind whistled over the houses and down the streets, and the flames of the torches leaned away from the wind. The sweat on their bodies cooled them, evaporating suddenly.

  To the north, lightning still flickered. Dark, angry-looking shapes, evil faces, were revealed in the twisting blazes. These hastened toward the city.

  The fat woman, Hinqa, holding the baby with one arm, snatched a torch from the hand of a man near her. Screaming, causing the baby to start screaming again, she whipped the torch over her head. All turned to look at her.

  "Kho has sent us a wind!" she cried. "Let's use it as She intends!"

  Hadon stared at her, wondering what she meant, what she intended to do. He was not the only one. Those near her shrank from her, scared of her wild-eyed look, her obvious possession. The Goddess seemed to have taken her over; her eyes seemed to blaze like the distant lightning.

  "Burn down the city!" she cried. "Burn! Burn! Burn! Destroy the worshipers of Resu and the subjects of Minruth the Tyrant! Let the faithful of the Flaming God burn in flames!"

  Her torch soared in an arc which ended inside a second-story window. That it had found sustenance was evident a moment later. Flames broke the darkness of the window and quickly spread through the room.

  "Yes! Let it burn!" a man shouted. He threw-his torch through the window of a house across the street.

  "Burn! Burn! For Kho's sake, burn!"

  Hadon was appalled. They seemed to have all gone crazy at once, as if the wind had indeed blown divine madness on them. If they burned the city down, where would they run to? They would either have to flee in ships, of which there were not nearly enough, or jump into the sea. And there they would drown or be devoured by the crocodiles, the otters, the grunt-fish.

  "Stop it! Stop it!" he yelled. No one heard him except the bard, the scribe and Ruseth. They looked as pale as he felt, gathered together as if they were the only islet of sanity in a sea of craziness.

  Now everybody was throwing torches through the windows. The wind whipped the flames as if they were galley slaves, urging them to work faster.

  Now the patrolmen were running, drawn by the flames and the mob. The mob threw itself on the patrolmen, overwhelming them, tearing them to pieces with their nails or hacking them to bits.

  In the distance, upwind, the shrilling of many whistles floated down. Drums beat somewhere, and then a great bell began to clang. This was soon followed by the clamor of many bells. It seemed that the city was vibrating in wood and air, shivering everywhere from strokes of bronze.

  Hinokly shouted in Hadon's ear, "They're mad, mad! They will burn the city down, the fools! Unless the authorities can put the fire out! But these people aren't going to let the firemen get close enough to do that! What's the matter with them?"

  "I don't know!" Hadon said. "We have to find Lalila! We have to get back to the ship as soon as possible!"

  He motioned to the others to follow him. With some difficulty he got through the ever-increasing crowd to the house. It was empty inside, but flames and clouds of smoke filled the second-story hallway. The whole house would be on fire within a few minutes.

  With the others behind him, he ascended the stairs to the third story and up a ladder to the roof. This was flat enough to allow them to walk along its sloping surface. The roof of the neighboring house was accessible; a long step and they were on it. A trapdoor lay open there—was it the one Lalila and the priestess had gone through?

  Smoke began curling from the trapdoor. Several seconds later, flame tongued from it.

  "The roof behind it," Hadon shouted, and he led them across the roof, which was hot on their bare feet, to the next roof. This belonged to a house along the next street over. At that moment he wondered what had happened to Ruseth's four crewmen. Never mind. They would have to save themselves.

  He looked over the edge of the roof. This street was also filled with a maniacal mob, and torches were being applied to houses and furniture. The wind was driving these fires southward; some sparks and small burning pieces of wood were being carried across the street to the houses on the other side. These were already burning, but this transmission of flame indicated how quickly the whole city would soon
be on fire.

  There were many lights out at sea. Hadon supposed these were naval vessels sent out to stand by. From the rapid rise and fall of the torches and lamps, the sea was very choppy.

  "We have to get down before we're cut off!" Kebiwabes shouted. Hadon nodded, and they raised a trapdoor and went quickly to the ground floor. They made it just in time, emerging into the street with scorched clothing and singed hair.

  Much of the mob had left by this time, apparently having gone to join a battle several streets away. From the clash of blades and the screams of wounded and dying, Hadon supposed that several hundred must be engaged there.

  Seeing the entrance to a public stairway, he ran to it. There were some people on it with the same idea. He followed them down the turnings until he was on a dock. The wind blew the flames of the torches set in brackets on a shack wall; if it got much stronger, the torches would be extinguished. By their guttering light men, women and children were climbing into boats or ships or already pulling away. The sea was heavy here, long and rolling, broken somewhat by the massive piles. Several of the vessels were carried, despite their crews' efforts, against the sides of the piles. The side of one was smashed and it began to sink.

  "Not everybody is a maniac," Hinokly said. "Soon everyone, crazed or not, will be down here, striving to get away from the inferno."

  Hadon did not reply. He pulled a woman from the water onto the dock and while she sat gasping, he asked, "Where is the Temple of Kho?"

  "My husband was killed," she said, moaning.

  Hadon shook her by a shoulder. "Where is the Temple of Kho?"

  "I don't care."

  "If you don't tell me, I'll let you stay here and die!"

  "I don't care," she said, and she began keening.

  Kebiwabes said, "The street above us is on fire. It'll be coming down the stairway next. This dry wood."