The Face of Chaos

When the guards were finished, they stepped back a pace to either side. Samlor's gear lay in a pile at his feet, save for the dagger, slipped now through the belt of one of the burly men who watched him.

Unconcerned, the Cirdonian knelt and pulled on his left boot. The man behind the desk waited for the stranger to speak. Then. as Samlor reached for his other boot, the masked leader snarled, 'Well? You're from Balustrus, aren't you? What's his answer?'

'No, I'm not from Balustrus,' Samlor said. He straightened up. holding the wine bottle. He pulled the cork with his teeth and spat it on to the floor before he went on. 'I came to buy information from you,' Samlor said, and he slurped a mouthful from the bottle.

The mask did not move. An index finger lifted minusculely for the chopping motion that would have ended the interview. Samlor spat the fluid in his mouth across the desk, splattering the topmost ledger and the lap of the seated man.

The hawk-masked leader lunged upward, then froze as his motion made the lamp flame gutter. There was a dagger aimed at Samlor's ribs from one side and a long-bladed razor an inch from his throat on the other; but the Cirdonian knew, and the guards knew ... and the man across the desk most certainly knew that, dying or not, Samlor could not be prevented from hurling the bottle into the lamp past which he had spat so nearly.

'That's right,' said Samlor with the bottle poised. 'Naphtha. And all I want to do is talk to you nicely, sir, so send your men away.'

While the leader hesitated, Samlor hawked and spat. It would take days to clear the petroleum foulness from his mouth, and the fumes rising into his sinuses were already giving him a headache.

'All right,' said the leader at last. 'You can wait below, boys.' He settled himself carefully back on his stool, well aware of the stain on his tunic and the way the ink ran where the clear fluid splashed his ledgers.

'The knife,' said Samlor when the guard who had disarmed him started to follow his fellow through the trap. An exchange of eyes behind masks; a nod from the leader; and the weapon dropped on the floor before the guard slipped into the alley. When the door closed above the men, Samlor set the potential firebomb in a corner where it was not likely to be bumped.

'Sorry,' said the caravan-master with a nod towards the leader and the blotted page. 'I needed to talk to you, and there wasn't much choice. My niece was stolen last month, not by you, but by Beysibs. Some screwball cult of them fishermen.'

'Who told you where I was?' asked the black man in a voice whose mildness would not have deceived a child.

'A fellow in Ranke, one eye, limps,' Samlor lied with a shrug. 'He'd worked for you but ran when the roof fell in.'

The leader's fists clenched. 'The password - he didn't tell you that!'

'I just mumbled my name. Your boys heard what they expected.' Samlor deliberately turned his back on the outlaw to end the line of discussion. 'You won't have contacts with their religious loonies, not directly. But you'll know their thieves, and a thief wili've heard something, know something. Sell me a Beysib thief, leader. Sell me a thief from the Setmur clan.'

The other man laughed. 'Sell? What are you offering to pay?'

Samlor turned, shrugging. 'The price of a four year old girl? That'd run to about four coronations in Ranke, but you know the local market better. Or the profit on the thief you give me. Figure what he'll bring you in a lifetime ... Name a figure, leader. I don't expect you to realize what this giri means to n", but - name a figure.'

'I won't give you a thief,' said the masked man. He paused deliberately and raised a restraining finger, though the Cirdonian had not moved. 'And I won't charge you a copper. I'll give you a name: Hort.'

Samlor frowned. 'A Beysib?'

The mask trembled negation. 'Local boy. A fisherman's son. He and his father got picked up by Beysib patrols at sea before the invasion. He speaks their language pretty well - better than any of them I know speaks ours. And I think he'll help you if he can.' The mask hid the speaker's face, but the smile was in his voice as well as he added, 'You needn't tell him who sent you. He's not one of mine, you see.'

Samlor bowed. 'I couldn't tell him,' he said. 'I don't know who you are.' He reached for the latch of the trap door. 'I thank you. sir.'

'Wait a minute,' called the man behind the desk. Samlor straightened and met the hooded eyes. 'Why are you so sure I won't call down to have you spitted the moment you're through this door?'

The Cirdonian shrugged again. 'Business reasons,' he said. 'I'm a businessman too. I understand risks. You'll be out of this place-' he waved at the dingy room - 'before I'm clear of the alley. No need to kill me to save a bolt-hole that you've written off already. And there's not one chance in a thousand that I could get past what you have waiting below, but -' calloused palm up, another shrug- 'in the dark ... You have people looking for you, sir, that's obvious. But none of them so far would be willing to burn this city down block by block to flush you, if he had to.'

Samlor reached again for the latch, paused again. 'Sir,' he said earnestly, 'you may think I've lied to you tonight... and perhaps I have. But I'm not lying to you now. On the honour of my House.' He clenched his fist over the medallion of Heqt on his breast.

The mask nodded. As Samlor dropped through the trap into darkness, the harsh voice called from above, 'Let him go! Let him go, this time!'

There was nothing ugly about the harbour water with the noon sun on it. The froth was pearly, the fish-guts iridescent; and the water itself, whatever its admixture of sewage, was faceted into diamond and topaz across its surface. Samlor sipped his ale in the dockside cantina as he had done at noon on the past three days. As before, he was waiting for Hort to return with information or the certain lack of it. The Cirdonian wondered what Star saw when she looked around her; and whether she found beauty in it.

There was commotion on one of the quays, easily visible through the cantina's open front. A trio of Beysib had been stepping a new mast into a trawler. As they worked, a squad of cavalry - Beysib also, but richly caparisoned in metals and brocades - had clattered along the quay. The squad halted alongside the boat. The men on the trawler had seemed as surprised as other onlookers when the troopers dismounted and leaped aboard, waggling their long swords in visual emphasis of the orders they shouted.

Nine of the horsemen were involved either in trussing the startled fishermen or acting as horseholders for the rest. The tenth man watched coldly as the others worked. He wore a helmet, gilded or gold, with a feather-tipped triple crest. When he turned as if in disdain for the proceedings, Samlor saw and recognized his profile. The man was Lord Tudhaliya, the swordsman who had been demonstrating his skill on an Ilsig animal the other day.

The fishermen continued to babble until ropes with slip knots were dropped over their throats. Then they needed all their breath

to scramble after the cavalrymen. The troopers remounted with a burst of chirruping cross-chat which sounded undisciplined to the caravan-master, but which detracted nothing from the efficiency of the process. Three of the men tied off the nooses to their saddle pommels. Tudhaliya gave a sharp order and the squad rode at a canter back the way it had come. Citizens with business on the quay dodged hooves as best they might. The fishermen blubbered in terror as they tried to run with the horses. They knew that a misstep meant death, unless the rider to whom they were tethered reined up in time. Nothing Samlor had seen of Lord Tudhaliya suggested his lordship would permit such mercy.