Reaching up to his neck, Ehomba grasped the torn strip of cord from which the figurine had hung. It had been with him ever since he had left the land of the Naumkib, a small, cool companion against his bare skin, a familiar weight to remind him of home. Now it was gone.
“I will miss you, Fhastal. Until I return home.”
“I hope I’ll still be alive by the time you get back. I would like to learn how this turns out for you.”
“You should have told me about the carving’s power.” He spoke in a tone that was chiding but also affectionate.
“I did, Etjole Ehomba, I did!” She was laughing at him now, and for a brief moment the all-encompassing white flame seemed to dance higher, like a live thing summoned fleetingly back to life. “Did I not tell you when last we spoke that you were speaking to the image and that the figurine was the real me? That by your wearing it I would be able to travel with you?”
Now it was his turn to smile as he remembered, fondly. “So you did, Fhastal. I listened to your words but did not hear.”
She wagged a finger at him and the simple gesture caused him to experience a start of recognition. When chiding children and their elders alike, as she did frequently and every day, aged Fhastal, real Fhastal, the chuckling, easygoing old Fhastal of the village, wagged her finger in exactly the same way.
“You see clearly and far, Etjole Ehomba, but there are times when you need to listen better!”
“I will remember,” he assured her solemnly, speaking as an unruly child would to a doting parent.
“See that you do.”
Simna stepped boldly forward. “Hoy, don’t I rate a farewell kiss as well?”
The tall figure gazed speculatively down at the eager swordsman. “I think not, friend of Etjole’s. You are too quick with the hands that wield that fine sword and, modest maid that I am, I have only enchantment and fire to protect me.” Reaching out, she playfully tousled his hair. “Perhaps in another life.” With those words, the last of the ethereal enveloping flame flickered out.
“Fhastal, wait!” Ehomba stepped forward, into the space where she had been. No pale efflorescence, no lingering glow, marked her final passage. There was only a faint warmth in the air, a smell of natural perfume, and the teasing tail end of a dissipating, girlish laugh.
“For us.” There in the dark and deserted street far from home he stood and murmured to the sky. “She gave the last of her youth to save us. It was embodied in that figurine that she gave me for protection.” Turning, he confronted Simna. The swordsman was still staring at the space the beauteous phantasm had vacated, savoring an already dwindling memory. “She could have enjoyed those moments in the company of old friends back in the village, or among those equal to her in experience and learning. But she gave it to us.”
“Hoy, and a wondrous thing to behold it was,” Simna readily agreed. “Knowledge and fighting ability and a sense of humor all in one woman. Not to mention those—”
Ehomba cut him off. “Show some respect, Simna.”
“I would love to, bruther. Hoy, would I give a month of my life to show that woman some respect!”
“That was a vision of her as a youth. Nowadays she is old, and wrinkled, and bent.”
The swordsman nodded somberly. “But still beautiful, I’d wager.”
“Yes. Still beautiful.” Taking a deep breath, he turned toward Ahlitah and the big cat’s mewling, unhealthy charge. “She told us to ask questions of Knucker. We should follow her advice.”
“Hoy.” Simna walked alongside his friend. “Just so long as we keep in mind that no matter how much he knows, he doesn’t know everything.” The swordsman sniffed. “I don’t care what she said. Nobody knows everything. Especially a broken-down ruin of a human being like that.”
While a disgusted Simna stood nearby and the litah preened blood and bits of dismembered gut from his fur, Ehomba crouched before the gently swaying form of the man they had rescued from the close. A firm push from one finger would have been enough to knock Knucker over.
“How are you doing, my friend?”
The rocking stopped. Bloodshot eyes looked up and blinked like broken shutters. “Fine, fine! Why shouldn’t I be?”
Ehomba glanced up at his companions. Ahlitah was ignoring everything while he concentrated on matters of individual feline hygiene. Simna snorted derisively and turned away. The herdsman looked back at the pathetic figure cowering before him.
“You did not see what happened?”
Knucker made an effort to peer around the kneeling form of the tall southerner. The effort would have caused him to keel over had not Ehomba reached out to steady him.
“Something’s happened?” Wispy brows drew together. “Who are you, anyway? And why are you standing out here at night in the middle of the street?” He blinked again. “Why am I out here at night in the middle of the street?”
“We found you lying moaning in a close.” Ehomba was gentle and patient. “It was after midnight and so we . . .”
Fear snapped Knucker’s eyes wide open. “After midnight?” Looking around wildly, he tried to rise and failed, having to rely on Ehomba’s strong arm to steady him once again. “We’ve got to get off the street, find shelter! The—”
“We know, we know.” The herdsman shifted his supportive hand from the little man’s waist to his upper arm. “I think it will be all right for a while, and there is a boardinghouse close by. Come.” Rising, he helped Knucker erect.
“You don’t understand,” the drunkard was babbling apprehensively. “After midnight, there are things abroad in Phan. Bad things. They come out of the darkness and—”
Ignoring the coating of filth that helped to keep the man warm, Ehomba put a steadying arm around the scrawny back. “But we do understand, friend Knucker. We do understand. Thanks to you.”
“To me?” Total confusion washed over the grimy, unshaven face. “What did I do? Who are you people?” As Ehomba gently shepherded him toward the unwinking, welcoming light of the boardinghouse and Ahlitah and Simna fanned out to either side to keep watch for trouble, they made their way up the empty but bloodied avenue. “And what am I doing out at night in the middle of the street?”
Off to Ehomba’s right, Simna scanned the shadows for signs of potential trouble. But the side streets and alleyways were as quiet as they were dark, innocent in the light of his patrolling vision. As he strode purposefully forward, he shook his head and chuckled harshly. “Knows everything. Sure he does. Sure. Giliwitil knows he doesn’t even know where he is!”
XIV
The sleepy-eyed proprietor of the boardinghouse woke up fast when he got a good look at the supplicants who had come knocking at his door. No ex-mercenary backed by a wall full of weapons, no towering muscular warrior nor even especially bold in his personal life, he was nonetheless a man of some determination and, within the limited bounds of his comparatively commonplace profession, courage.
“Come in, quickly!” Holding the door aside, he hastily scanned the street behind the nocturnal visitants.
Ehomba and his friends piled in, the herdsman and Simna supporting the intermittently driveling Knucker between them. Glancing downward as they stumbled through the portal, the tall southerner took note of the thick band of polished copper that gleamed beneath the doorjamb. Out of sight within the night and hugging the front wall of the boardinghouse, Ahlitah had remained unseen by the proprietor. Now the big cat trotted up the steps in the wake of his companions. The owner’s eyes grew wide.
“You”—he gulped as he pressed his back against the wall to make room for the massive feline to pass—“you can’t bring that thing in here!”
Lambent yellow orbs swung around to regard the stubby little man haughtily. “Who are you calling a ‘thing’?”
Startled, the landlord ceased trying to sidle desperately sideways up the hall. “It talks.”
“Yes,” Ahlitah replied dryly, “it talks.” Jaws that were capable of crushing furniture hovered a few feet f
rom the terrified owner’s perspiring face. The litah’s breath was warm on the man’s skin. “Don’t you have a house cat?”
“N-n-no,” the proprietor stammered weakly.
“Well you do now.” Turning away, Ahlitah followed his companions deeper into the building. His broad, padded paws made less noise on the thick throw rugs and wooden planking than did his far less weighty human friends.
The owner trailed behind, anxious to query his visitors but fearful of pressing too close to the big cat. At the same time he dared not raise his voice lest he wake sleeping patrons and precipitate a panic. So he compromised by whispering as loudly as he could.
“Is it a room you want, or just a temporary refuge?” An intense desire to be rid of these eccentric vagabonds and the carnivore that accompanied them fought against his inherent good nature. At the same time he tried to place a distinctive and most disagreeable smell that did not, surprisingly, come from the big cat.
Ehomba looked wordlessly at his friend. With a sigh, Simna checked his remaining gold, knowing even as he did so that there was very little left. Still, if any of it was magicked, it might have reproduced while resting in his purse. A quick check revealed that the gold was still plain, ordinary gold. What remained was no more and no less than what he had seen there the last time.
“Hoy,” he exclaimed frostily as he let Knucker’s fetid arm slide off his shoulder, “we wouldn’t have had to go through all that if not for this maundering sot. It’s time for him to contribute to his own stinking survival.” Taking a deep breath before he did so, the swordsman put his face close to the drunkard’s. “Look here, you. Have you got any money?”
Bleary eyes struggled to focus. “What?”
Making a face, Simna momentarily turned away from the blast of liquorish vapors. “Money. Gold, convertibles, currency of the realm, legal tender. Have you got any?” When Knucker did not reply, the swordsman reached down and began going through the man’s pockets. Another time, Ehomba might have objected. But their financial condition was parlous, and any group of village elders gathered to pass judgment on the situation would have agreed that the fellow owed them something for saving his life.
Simna’s burrowing produced a handful of dirty coins. Recognizing them, the wavering Knucker tried to protest. “No—not my drinking money!” With one hand he made a grab for the metal disks, only to miss them and the swordsman by a wide margin. Unable to focus clearly, he could not properly judge the proximity of objects, even if the most prominent of those objects was one of his reluctant saviors.
Simna confronted the landlord. “It’s a room we want. You wouldn’t put a man back out on these streets in the middle of the night, would you?”
Hesitantly, the proprietor accepted the money, counting out only enough to pay for a single night’s stay. “You’ll, um, be gone in the morning?”
The swordsman’s reply was brusque. “We’re not hanging around to sample the delights of greater Phan, if that’s what you mean.”
“We are not tourists,” Ehomba added, stating the obvious. He continued to support Knucker by himself while Simna dealt with the landlord. The effort did not exhaust the herdsman. He was used to carrying young calves around, and the small man weighed very little.
The landlord sighed and nodded. “Very well. Come with me.” Edging around the litah’s bulk, he started up a set of wide wooden stairs. Having settled business, Simna moved to assist Ehomba with his limp burden.
“We appreciate you extending your hospitality to us at this late hour.” As they climbed, Ehomba admired the wallpaper and the small pictures that decorated the stairwell.
“You should,” the landlord grumbled. While leading the way, he sorted through a large iron ring heavy with keys.
“I—I need a drink,” Knucker mumbled.
Looking back, the proprietor gave him a disapproving look. “There is no liquor in this house.”
Vacant eyes struggled to meet the owner’s. “Yes there is. There are two bottles in a secret drawer in the bottom of your desk. One of brandy, another of whiskey. You hide them there from your wife.”
As stunned as if he had walked face-first into a lamppost, the landlord stopped on a landing where the stairs took a leftward turn. “How—how did you know that? Are you a wizard?” He gaped at Simna. “Is this sorry specimen of humanity a wizard?”
“Nope.” The swordsman nodded at Ehomba. “He’s the wizard. This one here, he’s just a dipso who knows everything.”
“He can’t know everything,” the proprietor protested.
A line of slightly yellowish drool dribbling from the scabby right corner of his mouth, Knucker cackled softly. “Your wife knows where the drawer is. Why do you think each time you go there that there’s always a little less in the bottles than you remember?” The landlord’s lower jaw fell farther. “She also knows that you’re tumbling the downstairs maid.”
A look of tentative satisfaction came over the stocky landlord’s face. “Ha! You may be some kind of besotted seer who can see certain things, but you can’t see everything! I know my wife. If she knew that, she would have confronted me with it.”
Turning away from the men supporting him, Knucker coughed once. “Not in this instance. Because, you see, she is tumbling the downstairs maid also. It’s a matter of mutual tumbling, actually.”
The proprietor looked stricken. “By all the deities, you may not know everything, but you know too much!” Turning away angrily, he resumed the ascent. “No more, tell me no more!”
As they struggled up the stairs, Simna leaned closer to the man he was helping to support. “So the lady of the house and a servant are having a twiddle, hoy?” An inquisitive leer stole across his face. “If you know that, you must know all the details.”
Turning to him, Knucker tried to stand a little straighter as he was half carried, half dragged upward. “I may be many things, sir, but at least I am not degenerate.”
“Hoy. There lies the difference between us, bruther. I admit to what I am.”
“A drink.” The little man licked his lips and smacked his tongue against his palate, sending out the universal signal of need common to all his kind. “I’ve got to have something to drink.”
“We will try to get you some nice tea as soon as we are settled,” Ehomba told him reassuringly. A look of horror came over Knucker’s face.
The landlord had stopped outside a door. “I have only one room vacant, and it is far too small for your party. But this one here is a spacious chamber and you will be quite comfortable within—if I can persuade the current occupant to move.” He put his finger to his lips as he gently inserted the key in the lock and opened the door. “The gentleman is presently within, but I will offer him a discount and a free breakfast, and I think if I explain the situation to him calmly and rationally he may be willing to accept alternate quarters for the night.”
As soon as the door was open, Ahlitah pushed past the assembled humans. “I’ll explain the situation to him.”
“No!” As the proprietor reached out to grab and try to restrain the big cat, a small but loud voice shrieked warningly within his head, “What do you think you are doing?” Ordinary common sense immediately overwhelming his stalwart sense of managerial duty, he hastily drew back his hand.
Silently padding across the floor, the black litah approached the large bed and the single sleeping shape within. Reaching up, he rested a forepaw on the figure’s shoulder.
“Mmph—wha . . . ?” The sleeper’s eyes flickered. Then they opened wide. Real wide.
Ahlitah leaned close and spoke softly. “Go away.”
Wide awake, the naked sleeper gathered sheets and blanket around him and flew off the bed in the direction of the door. “I’m gone,” he responded. And he was, not even pausing to complain to the landlord. The stubby owner did not try to stop or slow him. He could not have done so in any event.
“I expect I’ll find him downstairs, in my office.” He sighed again. “He’ll probably w
ant a refund.” Stepping into the room, he brought out a striker and lit the two oil lamps within, one on the wall by the doorway and another that sat on a small writing table. “There is another, smaller bed in the second sleeping room. Through that door, there.” He pointed. “Please try to keep quiet. It’s very late, and everyone else in the house is asleep.”
Ehomba assured him that they would prepare for slumber as noiselessly as possible. Having curled up next to the unlit fireplace, the litah was already halfway unconscious.
“Come,” the tired herdsman directed his friend. “We will put this fellow into the other bed.”
“How come he gets a bed?” Simna protested as they hauled their mumbling cargo toward the other room. “Why not just dump him right here? He doesn’t make a very good man. He might make a serviceable doorstop.”
Ehomba eyed his companion sternly. “It was his money that paid for these lodgings.”
“Hoy, right—but he won’t remember that in the morning.” He uttered a subdued expletive. “I know, I know. Do what’s right. But it pains me, it does.”
“There is no need for you to pout,” the herdsman chided him. “You may have the large bed. I can tell by the look of it that it is too soft for me.” He nodded back the way they had come. “There is a couch, and thick carpets on the floor. I will be fine.”
“I wasn’t worried about you, long bruther.” But the swordsman’s tone belied his attempt at callousness.
Together they stripped Knucker of his ragged, profoundly stained clothing. Undressed, he looked even more pitiful than when clothed.
“I wonder when he last ate?” Ehomba murmured as he examined the emaciated torso.
Simna grunted as he tossed short, tattered boots into a corner. “You mean when last he chewed something. This lush has been drinking his meals for some time.”
“Perhaps we can get something solid into him in the morning,” the herdsman speculated.