Gangs of Antares (19 page)
The worried woman who answered our knock told us that her husband was very ill, the needleman was with him, and San Duven, may Cymbaro be praised, had spoken powerful words on the sick man’s behalf. As for San Duven himself, that great man had just left.
“He went down Cabbage Alley past the grading sheds.”
We thanked her and then decided to follow Duven. Cabbage Alley smelled of the obvious. The lights were few and scattered. At the end where the alley joined the main avenue, lanternlight splashed a streak of brilliance into the dimness. From that direction came the muted hubbub of people about their various businesses.
We walked along steadily. Perhaps Duven had gone this way to take the opposite cable car to a different destination. He must be kept busy doing the visiting rounds for the folk of Cymbaro.
A thin bubbling scream scythed into the air. That shriek held all of terror and doom and death in its unearthly screech. At once it was cut off. The silence seemed to fall in after that hellish sound.
Dimpy and I sprang forward. “Stop! Murderer!”
Against the avenue lights the dark contorted silhouette of a man scrambled away, robes flapping. We followed — fast.
Dimpy fell over the body.
The silhouette vanished around the corner into the avenue and I stumbled as Dimpy crashed into me, so violent was his reaction to get away from the corpse.
I looked down.
There was light enough to see the gash in her throat, the dark blood, the terror branded on the pretty, innocent face. She must work at the grading sheds. Poor thing; there had been warnings enough about young girls walking alone at night.
Straightening up, I said: “Come on. We might catch the blintz along the avenue.”
That heart-rending scream had attracted other attentions besides ours. A patrol of the City Guard debouched into the alley from the avenue. Their lantern light flared upon the scene, upon the dead girl, on Dimpy, on me just straightening up from the dead body. The guardsmen let out a snarling growl of anger.
Many of the great ones had detailed members of their personal guard to assist the City Guard. One of those armored figures ahead recognized me.
“Stand still! Drajak known as the Sudden! Bloody murderer! Stay where you are!”
“Not likely!” I ripped out. There’d be no mercy from those men. I doubted if I’d reach their headquarters in one piece. The case was open and shut.
The guardsmen started down towards us, armor clanking.
“Come on, sunbeam,” I said. “Run!”
“I’d never have believed San Duven could’ve done these ’orrible murders,” said Dimpy.
I felt the shock. “Dimpy! You can’t really believe Duven is guilty!”
We crouched in a dark doorway. We’d thrown off that first pursuit and now we were getting our breaths back.
“We saw him! Didn’t we?”
“We saw a dark figure—”
“And the vegetable lady told us he’d gone down Cabbage Alley.”
“All the same—” I shook my head. “If the murders are not the work of Dokerty, then my guess was that Prince Ortyg had put some of his gang up to it. That way he’d hit directly at Khon the Mak who is a strong Dokerty supporter.”
Dimpy didn’t reply. He had a tough and resilient young mind and he’d seen plenty of unpleasant things in his seasons on Kregen. It was easier for him to believe in Duven’s guilt.
He spelled out the obvious when he said that now the City Guard had me down for the crimes, they’d block all the cable car exits. Any known way off the hill would be guarded. All lifters would be watched. They had me trapped.
I didn’t tell Dimpy that if I could reach the Vallian Embassy I’d be safe. Then I’d contact Kov Brannomar and he’d straighten out this mess.
Also, if I could get word to Naghan Raerdu the Barrel, probably through Milsi the Slinky, he would be a tower of strength.
So, it wasn’t all gloom and doom in this desperate situation.
Dimpy brought those daydreams down to earth with a bump.
“They’ll never give up till they catch you. I’ll tell ’em you didn’t do it, in course. But they won’t believe me.”
Would Brannomar believe I was innocent?
“And you ain’t going to get off here easy, I can tell you that.”
“No,” I half groaned. “You’re right.”
“I gotta idea.”
His voice hardened. I supposed it had occurred to him that if the City Guard caught us, Dimpy would be judged as guilty as was I, for he’d been there, standing over the body with me.
“Come on, Drajak. Lessee what we can do.”
So off we went, skulking like a pair of ghosts on the Hill of Dancing Ghosts. Dimpy knew his way about here, for, as he’d told me, this was a favorite stamping ground of the robber gangs.
Inevitably, we were spotted.
We’d just cautiously crossed from one alley to another. My description must have been broadcast by the patrols, for a shout lifted, high and shrill.
“That’s him! Drajak the Sudden! Murderer!”
By the pendulous purple jowls of the Divine Lady of Belschutz! What a stinking mess we were in! We hared off at once into the shadows and in no time at all a howling mob formed and roared after us like a pack of werstings on the loose.
One of the many problems besetting me now was that if a person tried to stop me he would be an ordinary honest upright citizen helping the guard to arrest a despicable mass murderer. He’d be trying to do his civic duty. I certainly couldn’t kill him.
We shot across the next street like two bolts from arbalests. The yells at our backs intensified. The next alley, ill lit, showed a line of dark back entrances. Dimpy spotted a broken window and hared across to it. I hesitated. Then I followed him.
If the mob sussed out we’d ducked in here we might find ourselves completely trapped. But there was a chance they’d go storming on and out of sight.
The window eased open under Dimpy’s professional expertise. We squeezed through and the window closed at our backs. Utter darkness stretched ahead. There was a strange smell on the air.
Dimpy sniffed. “Kaff.” He spoke in a disgusted tone.
We groped forward. The racketing noise of the mob swelled at our backs, crescendoed — and then, blessedly, faded.
A wall came up and hit me on the nose. I did not swear. Feeling along, my fingers encountered a handle. I couldn’t see Dimpy; but I could hear his light breathing. Quite an athlete, young Dimpy. Taking a breath, I turned the handle and pushed the door in.
A low pinkish radiance from a shielded lamp revealed a double row of low beds. Each bed held a man. They were not in this world. The stink of Kaff invaded my nostrils. They were all stoned to the eyeballs.
Dimpy, like a sinuous wraith, glided ahead between the rows. At the far end a door stood ajar and we peered around the jamb.
A hulking great Undurker, his borzoi nose in the air, was reading a book. He looked up, eyes widening. I leaped. He went to sleep and I trusted to Djan that he was not too injured.
“’Orrible stuff, Kaff,” quoth Dimpy. “You should have hit him harder.”
“You have to feel sorry for folk who indulge. It’s their funeral.”
“Yes. Come on. It’s not much further.”
We exited through the far door onto a street where the torches flared, and skulked along. On the next turning Dimpy turned down it and a few doors along stopped before a shopfront. The establishment was a carpet store.
“This is where the Hellraisers came up that day.”
I looked at the shop. It was nondescript, a likely place for the gang members to leave when they’d made the ascent. Dimpy tried the door. The place was in darkness and naturally the door was bolted.
“Give us a moment.”
He worked busily. Then the door creaked open. In we went.
I fell over a carpet, and cursed. Dimpy produced a tinder box, and when we had a light, we explored. Dimpy spent some time prodding and prying at the floor. By his face I knew the news was not good.
“They’ve sealed it up.” He sounded exasperated.
“I’m not surprised. You were being chased and they must have reasoned you were arrested. You’d tell where this place was.”
He looked murderous in the lamplight. “That Sleed!”
“Don’t fret—”
“I’m not! Come on. There’s still a chance.”
He extinguished the light and we went back out into the street. My splendid new red shamlak had been partly the cause of my predicament. The red of the shamlak had been immediately equated with the red of Dokerty, the red of the scrap of cloth found in the hand of Jenni Farlang, who’d worked in a jeweler’s shop.
Although I’d so coolly told Dimpy not to fret, I was, myself, seething with frustration and disappointment. We could so easily have gone down the way Dimpy and the Hellraiser recruits had come up. I kept my futile anger to myself. Dimpy was doing splendidly and I did not want to jeopardize his confidence.
There were two obvious courses of action that might be followed, one initiated by me, the other not.
Using the skills taught by Deb-Lu I could change my face around. I could grab some fresh clothes, discard the braxters. I was enormously reluctant to abandon the rapier and main gauche; but if it came to a choice between those and my life, the decision was obvious. Even then, there’d be no cast iron guarantee of success. And Dimpy in that scenario?
He was the reason the other course of action could not be followed. The Star Lords might — might, ha! — reach down and hoick me out of this mess. They’d probably want to talk to me and to discipline me. I’d not had so much of that lately as in the Old days. Then they’d hurl me back to guard the numim twins. I did not want that to happen; I didn’t want to leave Dimpy alone, and hunted.
Anyway, even if the Everoinye returned me to duty, that fact would soon be known and the City Guard would be around Nandisha’s palace seeking my hide.
Mind you, if my plan succeeded and I reached Brannomar first, everything would turn out for the best. I’d just have to convince the Hyr Kov that the Emperor of All Paz didn’t go around murdering sweet young girls and chopping them up.
Dimpy leading, we scuttled through the mottled shadows.
You could say this for Dimpy — he was the complete expert at keeping a low profile, of stealthily creeping along, of avoiding observation, of taking full advantage of every shadow. By Vox, you could say it, and it was true! Mind you, as an old leem-hunter I’d been at this game longer than he had. So we skulked along the streets, using the shadows, halting at the slightest sound, two fugitives from justice.
Waiting patiently for some time at a corner, he took careful stock of the street and of the shopfronts lining it. Eventually he motioned and we padded across to a cake shop. It was a middling establishment, emblazoned with the name Nath’s Cake and Bun Emporium, and, of course, it was locked up for the night. Dimpy had us in there in no time.
The place was not abandoned but in business and Dimpy said they’d be new owners. We went down into the cellar where Dimpy prodded and pried as he had before. He grunted as he heaved up a trapdoor. A ladder led down into darkness.
“We Roaring Fifties used this.” He sighed. “Them was the days.” A lamp on a shelf was quickly lighted. We went down into the depths. I, for one, wondered just what I was getting myself into.
Very soon the way down changed from a ladder to a stonewalled passage, past an iron-barred door, into rough-hewn tunnels. The way was steep and treacherous. Nitre shone on the walls. The air smelled musty and stale. There was the stink of sulphur.
Dimpy was trying to go along at a breakneck speed.
“Apart from lack of food and drink,” I told him, “we’re not in any tearing hurry. The longer they can’t find us aloft, the more they’ll slacken their search.”
He slowed down a trifle — not by much, by Krun!
The adventure down the tunnels was accompanied by many alarms and excursions. We met none of the skinned apes. We did run into a prowling praxul.
The thing’s warty scaled hide bulked shoulder high for it was a full grown adult. Its three stalked eyes surveyed us in the luminosity of the lichen, and writhed away as the lanternlight fell across its head. It hissed, its claws slicing the musky air.
Dimpy hauled out his braxter. I did likewise. Side by side we confronted the praxul.
I had the light. I swung it violently forward and the praxul backed, hissing.
“He stinks like garbage left in an alley for a sennight,” I said. “Phew!”
Even as I spoke Dimpy leaped in and slashed. He missed the eye and jumped back, avoiding the return slash of the lethal claws. Watching for an opening as the thing weaved from side to side, I saw a chance, slid in, slashed, missed, and managed to skip back. The lights and shadows writhed madly along the walls and roof.
The lamp might not be essential now we had left the darkness of the ladders down and were in the luminance of the lichen. Stepping back I placed the lamp carefully down, keeping my gaze fixed on the praxul. Had our light been a torch, of course, we’d have singed the beastie to a nice crispy toast.
Unencumbered and using two swords I attacked again as Dimpy put in a distracting side feint. Two stalked eyes flew up into the air.
As always, as always, I felt sorry for the poor thing. It screeched and stank and turned around. Whining and howling it scuttled off into the confusing shadows.
We went on and down resolutely, alertly. All the time I kept wondering why the Everoinye had not plucked me up out of the tunnels and set me down to my duty. Why?
When the blue radiance formed Dimpy remained in complete ignorance of the phantasmal presence of a Witch of Loh. He could not hear Ling-Li or me. Her Ivory of Chem face looked as gravely beautiful as ever. “Gron-Arm-Chenlang. That’s his name. Recently graduated.”
“I supposed,” I said drily.
“Deb-Lu at first was concerned he might not be a true Wizard of Loh — of Walfarg. Khe-Hi, too, was worried lest he was a—”
“Yes?”
She touched her lips with an exquisite finger. “Balintol is famous for sorcery, Dray. The old king in Tolindrin tried to suppress some of them because they were becoming too powerful.”
“I’ve only heard of low level mages here.”
