Jane Carver of Waar (35 page)

I grabbed Lhan’s arm. “What the hell is that?”

He smiled, proud. “That is the temple of Ormolu, High Lord of the Seven. ’Tis for His temple that our city is named, and what permits us to claim the honor of being the greatest city on Waar.”

“But... but you guys never built that!”

“Of course not. ’Tis a relic of the Seven. Each of the seven holy cities is built around a temple, but this is the temple of the High Lord; the largest and finest.”

“Man, these Seven guys had the toys, huh? So, you pray in there? It must hold a million.”

Sai looked shocked. “None but the priesthood may enter, and then only those of the highest level. We pray at the chapels in the temple grounds. That is where Wen-Jhai’s... wedding will take place, if it hasn’t already.”

I watched the thing as we sailed by it. Silhouetted against the sun it suddenly looked like a giant prick casting its shadow across the city. You might think, after all my whining about not getting any, that I’d see that as a good thing, but I didn’t like it. It seemed to sum up the whole Oran daddy-knows-best culture in one big phallic “fuck-you” middle finger. It gave me a weird, big-brother-is-watching-you feeling. The feeling you’d get if you had a nuclear missile for a next door neighbor—or a police station.

***

We landed just as the sun went down, in the largest shipfield I’d seen yet, a mile square if it was an inch, with ships rising and sinking all over it. In the purple sunset it made me think of a giant lava lamp.

When we went to leave the ship, Captain Mopey came up, hemming and hawwing. “Er... beware, gentle sirs, there is danger for you in Ormolu. You have been most generous for my small kindnesses in the past. Let me take you to a safe place while I scout out the lay of the land for you. Whatever information you require, I can obtain it for you.”

Lhan smiled. “For a price, of course.”

Mopey bowed. “The Dhanan is most kind.”

Sai frowned. “You have already been paid double for our passage. Can you want more?”

Lhan pulled Sai aside. “He offers a valuable service, Sai. Unjustly accused though we may be, we are still wanted criminals. Until we know where and when Wen-Jhai’s ceremony takes place we must remain hidden. If having won this far we are stopped at the very gates of happiness...”

“This happiness you speak of is a presumption I can’t share, but if you wish it...” Sai shrugged.

Lhan turned back to the captain. “Lead on, sir.”

***

Mopey drove us out hidden in a cargo wagon, so at least I had company under the tarp this time. He put us up in a second-story rat-trap over a barrel-maker’s place in a shabby slum near the shipfield. There was an airmen’s tavern on the corner. We could hear them singing dirty songs.

Lhan gave Mopey another fraction of Sai’s jewelry and told him to find out when and where the royal wedding was taking place, or if it already had, and where Wen-Jhai and Kedac were staying. Mopey went away promising news and food within the passing of a moon.

We settled in to wait, and wait. It was cramped up there, two rooms with nothing in ’em except one chair and a three-legged table that was supposed to have four. The windows on one side looked out on the street, but Mopey told us we’d better keep the shutters closed. I thought it was overkill, but Lhan agreed, so we didn’t even have a view.

There was nothing to do. We should have slept, but we were all too busy thinking. Could we get to Wen-Jhai or Kedac the wedding? Was it already over? Would we have to crash it?

Sai was probably worrying about whether he could beat Kedac, and Lhan was probably worrying about whether Wen-Jhai would actually talk to Sai even if he did. What I was worrying about was whether I was going to go through with my plan at all. Now that Kedac was almost in reach I was feeling guiltier than ever. All that bullshit I’d told myself about Sai thanking me for killing Kedac went right out the window. Sai would hate me. Worse than that, Lhan would hate me. Sai might be a weenie, but Lhan and I had become friends. We got each other’s jokes. We’d gone through hell together. How was I going to look him in the eye after I’d jumped ahead of Sai and cut Kedac in half?

I tried to tell myself it didn’t matter. I’d be catching the next train back to Earth as soon as I could anyway. But would I? Once I killed Kedac you can bet Sai would put the kibosh on hooking me up with his father-in-law the Aldhanan pretty damn quick. Shit, the guy probably wouldn’t even
be
Sai’s father-in-law if I killed Kedac. If Sai didn’t do the job himself would Wen-Jhai even give him the time of day? The more I thought about it the more I realized how much killing Kedac was going to fuck everything up. Everybody would hate me and I’d be back at square one as far as getting off this boondock planet went. I went back and forth about it so much I wore a trench in my brain.

To kill the time, Sai and Lhan taught me a game they played when they were kids. It was a cross between horseshoes and marbles. You drew a circle on the floor, then stood across the room and tossed pebbles at it. Everybody started with the same number of pebbles, but once you threw all you had, you could only start the next round with the ones you’d managed to land inside the circle. The last guy with pebbles left won. Lhan won every time, the bastard.

When a moon-crossing passed and Mopey still hadn’t come back we got too fidgety even to play games, so we just sat around doing nothing and looking up every time we thought we heard him coming up the stairs.

Finally, way into the third dark, we did hear steps on the stairs. Too many steps. There was somebody on the roof, too, and more on the back stairs.

Lhan drew his sword. “Friends, we are betrayed.”

The doors and the windows exploded as guys rushed in from the stairs and swung down from the roof. We were up to our asses in assassins, all wearing dark cloaks over their harnesses and leather masks that covered their whole heads.

Our rep must have preceded us, ’cause they brought the whole gang. There were more than twenty guys swinging steel in that tiny room, with fucking Captain Mopey on the sidelines whining, “The jewelry! You promised me their jewelry!”

It was a little tough getting busy at first. They were so tight around us I couldn’t swing my sword without backhanding Lhan or Sai. The assassins had the same problem. I decided to do everybody a favor and clear a little space. I picked up the three-legged table like a shield and bulldozed a handful of guys straight at the smashed-in window.

Damn place was such a shit-box that I didn’t just push them out the window, I pushed the entire window out of the wall. The whole frame, plus a shower of bricks, plaster and men smashed into the street below. I almost went with them, but I caught the broken edge of the wall and hauled myself back in.

Some joker took advantage of my precarious position and poked me in the backside. I yelped like wolf in a trap and spun around, swinging my sword blind. I cut the poor bastard in half.

That stopped the show. The assassins stood there staring from me to the body, bug-eyed behind the peep-holes of their masks. Sai and Lhan took the opportunity to get in a few free swings.

That’s all it took. The assassins ran like the devil was on their tails, that backstabber Mopey with them.

We stood in the ruins of the room, looking at half-a-dozen maimed and dismembered bodies as the sound of the assassins’ footsteps pitter-pattered away down the street. The guy I’d cut in two was turning one corner into a red lake. I spit and swallowed, trying to force down the queasy, swimmy feeling I still got after killing people. I’d cut a guy in half!

I put on my tough chick act to cover my hands shaking. “So... so who are these ninjas? The local vigilante gang?”

“Let us discover.” Lhan knelt by a guy who still had his head and cut off his mask.

Sai gasped. “Can it be? No!” He pulled aside the guy’s cloak, and peeked at the insignia on his shoulder armor. He turned pale. “I know this man. ’Tis Dal-Var, one of my sister’s household guard.”

Lhan and Sai checked the rest of them. Half wore Sai’s sister’s insignia, half wore Vawa-Sar’s.

Sai was all a-twitter. “But what means this treachery? Why does my sister try to kill me?”

“Only one way to find out.” I jumped out the window.

The tallest building around was across the street. I sprang to a first-floor balcony and monkeyed up to the roof. I leaped up on a little shack and scanned in all directions. Our assassins couldn’t be more than a few blocks away, but which way?

Finally, through a gap between two buildings, I saw some shadows flicker across a wall. I ran to the edge of the roof and leaped across the alley behind it, then started hopping from roof to roof like some super-villain from a Spider-Man comic. It cleared my head. I started feeling better. In fact, I felt great. What a blast. Without Lhan and Sai I could really travel. I was practically dancing, touching down with just a toe here, a heel there.

I spotted the assassins running down a side-street with Mopey wheezing behind them. I kicked off a brick chimney to change direction, then hopscotched after them. One of them seemed to be the boss, shouting at the others to hurry up. That’s the one I wanted.

Unfortunately, just as I caught up they crossed a wide avenue and I ran out of roof tops.

I screeched to a stop. I was a little leery about dropping down to street level. According to Mopey I was on Ormolu’s ten-most-wanted. Hell, even if people hadn’t seen my mug shot, they’d hunt me down based on my freak factor alone. Had to be done though.

I jumped down two stories and landed in a three point stance in the middle of the street. People turned, gaping.

I stood and howled like a redneck at a Lynyrd Skynyrd concert. “Yippie-kai-yay, motherfuckers!”

It worked. People ran like cats from a vacuum cleaner. Mothers grabbed their children. Women hid behind their men. Men hid behind their women.

“Monster!”

“Demon!”

I charged across the avenue into an alley after the assassins. The last two looked back. They shouted and scattered. The others turned.

I jumped into a flying kick and planted both boots square on the bossman’s chest. He skidded ten feet in the alley muck. I rolled and came up standing.

The assassins faced me, eyes wide, whiteknuckling their swords, on the knife edge between fight or flight. The boss man was behind me. I stepped back to haul him up. Bad idea. The assassins read that as a retreat and charged.

The alley was too narrow for me to get a good swing in, and I’d had my fill of cutting guys in half for one night. I sheathed my sword, heaved the bossman over my shoulder, then jumped up and grabbed a drain pipe. Swords chipped sparks off the brick wall all around my ankles. I climbed hand-over-hand to the rooftop. Good thing none of those fuckers had bows.

***

Back at the hovel Lhan tore the guy’s mask off. Sai gasped again. It was a big night for gasping. “Shao-Lar?” He turned to us. “’Tis my sister’s personal bodyguard.” Then back to Shao-Lar. “What is the meaning of this, villain?”

“I’ll never talk.”

I reached under his loincloth and squeezed. “You’ll never talk in that octave again.”

He squeaked, but kept his mouth shut. Brave man.

Lhan leaned in. “We know much of it already. We know Vawa-Sar has dealings with Kedac-Zir that hinge on his marriage to Wen-Jhai.”

Sai opened his mouth to disagree. Lhan elbowed him. “Come, Shao-Lar. Or shall Mistress Jae-En make a boy of you again?”

Shao-Lar groaned and turned to Sai. “It... It was your sister’s plan. Hers and Vawa-Sar’s.”

“My sister? You lie, sir. Shayah is a...”

Lhan interrupted. “A conniving harridan, and always has been, ever since she told on us to your father for plucking the tail feathers of his favorite krae. Say on, Shao-Lar.”

He nodded and turned to Sai. “Vawa-Sar covets your father’s land, since his is rocky and barren. He knew that unless you were dead Shayah would not inherit. Together they conspired to cause your death, so that when they married, Vawa-Sar would inherit your father’s lands as well as his own.”

Lhan spit. “Vile fratricide. I always did detest her.”

Sai waved at him to clam up. “And so they sent you here to kill me? They dared?”

“No Dhanan, this was but a desperate measure when it was discovered that you had escaped Kedac-Zir’s blade.”

Sai paled. “Kedac-Zir? He truly is involved in all of this?”

Shao-Lar blinked. “You said you knew of that.”

I laughed. “We guessed. Now spill it.”

He hesitated. I gave his nuts another honk. He spoke right up. “Kedac-Zir was key to it all.” He looked at Sai. “Knowing your... lack of martial prowess, and seeking a way to kill you that would bring no investigation or retribution, they concieved a plan where someone would bride-nap Wen-Jhai under protection of the Sanfallah and kill you in the process. But for the plan to succeed it must be someone so rich and well-connected that no political motive might be construed. They contacted Kedac-Zir and he agreed, in exchange for some favors, the nature of which they have kept secret even from me.”

I gave Sai an I-told-you-so look. “See?”

“No! I refuse to believe it. No Oran gentleman...”

Lhan laughed. “Even now you defend him?”

“Perhaps he agreed to their plan, but only so that he might follow his heart.”

“Once again, Sai, your charitable nature does you credit, but with the evidence of Mai-Mar’s lies, implicating us in the kidnapping of Wen-Jhai, I begin to suspect...”

Sai stood, straighter than I’d seen him in days. “You are right, Lhan. If there is even a suspicion of doubt we must confront him. I would have the testament of his love from his own lips, that I might judge its fervor for myself.” He looked down at Shao-Lar. “Where stays Kedac-Zir?”

“He is billeted at the Naval barracks.”

“He keeps Wen-Jhai at a barracks?” Sai was outraged.

“No, she stays with Kedac-Zir’s cousin, at his townhouse.”

“See?”

Sai glared at me. “We shall see indeed. When is the ceremony?”