The Sunset Warrior - 01 (2 page)

‘Stahlig?’ said one. He had a crisp, clear voice.

‘Yes?’

‘Your presence is required. Please pack your healing bag and come with us.’ He handed Stahlig a folded sheet. The other one did absolutely nothing except watch them. Both his hands were free. Stahlig read the sheet.

‘Freidal himself,’ he murmured. ‘Most impressive.’ He looked up. ‘Of course I shall come, but you must tell me something of the nature of the summons. I must know what to bring.’

‘Bring everything.’ The daggam eyed Ronin suspiciously.

‘That is quite impossible,’ said Stahlig impatiently.

‘I am his assistant. You may speak freely in front of me,’ said Ronin. The daggam’s eyes swung darkly upon him, then back to Stahlig.

The Medicine Man nodded. ‘Yes, he is helping me.’

‘A Magic Man,’ the daggam said slowly, reluctantly, ‘has gone mad. We have been forced to restrain him—for his own safety as well as the safety of others. He had already wantonly attacked his Teck. But his health seems to be failing, and—’

Stahlig was already busy cramming phials and paraphernalia into a worn leather bag. Seeing this, the daggam stopped, and instead of finishing his thought he stared stonily at Ronin.

‘You are no assistant,’ he said icily. ‘You carry a sword. You are a Bladesman. Explain.’

Stahlig ceased to fill his bag but remained with his back to them. That does not help, Ronin thought.

‘Yes, of course I am a Bladesman, but as you can see I am unaffiliated and so have much free time. So I help the Medicine Man from time to time.’

Stahlig finished filling his bag. He turned. ‘All set,’ he said. ‘Lead the way.’ He looked at Ronin. ‘You had better accompany me.’

Ronin stared at the daggam. ‘It would certainly relieve the boredom.’

The Corridor swept away from them in a smooth, gently curving arc. The walls were painted a grey that at one time had been uniform; now, through years of wear and neglect, there were patches made oily and dark by dirt, areas crusty with grime, sections bleached almost white. Here and there spiderweb cracks extended their fingers like tenacious plants seeking sunlight.

Doorways marched by them on either side at regular intervals. Those with doors were invariably shut. Occasionally an open doorway revealed cubicles dark and musty, debris piled in corners, refuse strewn about the floor. But, beyond the evidence of human detritus, they were empty save for the brief flash of small scurrying bodies: click-click of claw, whip of tail.

Gradually the grey of the walls gave way to a tired lustreless blue. The daggam turned left into a dark passageway in the interior wall of the Corridor and the pair behind them followed. None of them gave a second look at the stalled Lift across the Corridor.

They were on a landing of the Stairwell that ran vertically along the rim of the core of the Freehold. One of the daggam, the one who talked, reached up into a niche in the wall and removed a torch of tarred reeds bound tightly with cord. He held it in front of him while the other daggam produced flint and a tinder box, got a flame going, and touched it to the torch. It flared and crackled as it caught. Sparks jumped in the air and fell blackly at their feet.

Without a backward glance, the daggam proceeded down the concrete steps. Ronin was surprised to find that they were descending rather than ascending. The little he knew of the mysterious Magic Men indicated that they held a lofty position in the hierarchy of the Freehold. Their talents and wisdom were constantly courted by the Saardin despite their traditional vow for ever to work towards the good of the entire Freehold. But it was possible that they were not immune to politicization. By all rights the Magic Man should be quartered on one of the Freehold’s Upper Levels, yet they were descending. Ronin shrugged mentally. No one knew much about them except that they were rumoured to be strange individuals. If one chose to reside on the fringes of the Middle Levels with the Neers it was no concern of his.

Between each Level the Stairwell doubled back on itself at a landing. They traversed the Levels silently, the shivering torchlight distorting their shadows into grotesque parodies of human shapes, shambling things that danced along the walls and low ceilings, expressionless, unthinking, desire-less, receding from and approaching their human counterparts disconcertingly.

At length they reached the proper Level and emerged into a Corridor identical to the one they had quit above, save that here the walls were painted a drab green. They waited while the daggam snuffed the torch and placed it in the niche in this landing.

There was more activity on this Level. Men and women passed them going in either direction and the low hum of distant conversations filled the air like a tidal wash. Perhaps two hundred metres from where they emerged, they came upon a door painted dark green. All the others they had seen on this Level were the same colour as the walls. Before the door stood two daggam.

A brief, muffled exchange passed between the four daggam. The shorter of the pair guarding the door nodded curtly, turned, and rapped a peculiar pattern on the door. It was opened by another daggam, and the messengers and Stahlig stepped through. Ronin moved to join them but was stopped short by the palm of one of the guards pressed against his chest. The daggam’s jaw jutted. ‘Where you goin’?’ His voice managed to sound bored and contemptuous at the same time.

‘I am with the Medicine Man.’ Ronin met his eyes with a steady gaze. He saw a round, jowly face too large for the small, fat nose and close-set eyes the colour of mud. But, thought Ronin, an efficient machine that will respond instantly and unfailingly to orders. I have seen so many.

The square mouth with its thick red lips opened like a reluctant gate. ‘Don’t know anything ’bout it. Move along ’fore you get into trouble.’

Ronin felt the pressure from the other’s hand and stood his ground. Surprise showed briefly in the daggam’s eyes: he was used to a certain response to the application of his power. He recognized fear in others easily, loved creating it, seeing it burn before him as if it were a sacrifice. He saw no fear now, and this disturbed him. Anger flared within him, and his fingers plucked at the top dagger strapped across his chest.

Ronin’s hand was on the hilt of his sword when a face appeared from around the still partially open door. ‘Stahlig, you absentminded—’

The Medicine Man’s eyes widened. ‘Ronin. Wondered where you were. Come along in.’

Ronin stepped forward but the daggam still barred his way. The daggam, anger still beating within him, shook his head, and the blade of the dagger gleamed in the Corridor’s light.

At that moment Robin saw another face appear. Long and lean with a cleft jaw filled with determination, a very high, narrow forehead topped by coal-black hair so slick and shiny it had blue highlights, it was dominated by wide-apart eyes of a clear piercing blue, whose penetrating gaze appeared to take in everything while giving away nothing.

‘Qieto,
Marcsh. Let the fellow through.’ The voice was deep and commanding.

Marcsh heard the words and automatically moved aside, but the anger refused to die, beating ineffectually at the cage of his burly chest. He glared in silent resentment as the figure moved past him, careful that his Saardin should not see, and thus punish him.

Ronin found himself in an antechamber off which he saw two rooms set at angles. The one on his left was furnished starkly and functionally with a large work table and smallish writing desk along one wall, and a narrow bed along the opposite wall. The room was dark but he could make out a figure sprawled on the bed. Battered and scarred cabinets lined the upper areas of three walls. A lone chair squatted empty in the middle of the cubicle.

The room to the right was less utilitarian. Two walls were lined with low couches and cushioned chairs. The daggam, including the two who had been sent for Stahlig, sat on the couch farthest from the door, amid a meal. In the anteroom two more daggam stood flanking Stahlig and the man who commanded the daggam. Ronin thought they must have torn down some walls in order to make these quarters. Two-cubicle quarters were rare enough Upshaft, but Down here—

‘Ah, Ronin,’ said the Medicine Man. ‘This is Freidal, Saardin of Security for the Freehold.’

Freidal inclined his long body from the waist in a gesture that was somehow theatrical. He did not smile, and his eyes were blank beacons that studied Ronin for another brief moment before he returned his gaze to Stahlig. They resumed their discussion.

Freidal was dressed all in deep grey save for the knee-high boots of the Saardin and the oblique chest stripes of the Chondrin, both of which were silver. Ronin wondered at this: overlord and tactician, eyes and ears, all rolled into one.

‘Nevertheless,’ he was saying now, ‘do you take responsibility for this man being here?’

‘Ach!’ Stahlig rubbed his forehead. ‘Do you think he will walk out with Borros? Nonsense.’

Freidal eyed the Medicine Man coldly. ‘Sir, there is much here that is of the gravest import to the Freehold.’ The brass hilts of his daggers winked in the light as he shifted easily. ‘I cannot take unnecessary risks.’ He spoke in a curiously formal, almost anachronistic manner. He stood very straight and he was very tall.

‘I assure you there is nothing to fear from Ronin’s presence,’ Stahlig said. ‘He is merely observing my techniques, and is here only because I invited him.’

‘I trust you are not so foolish as to lie to me. That would lead to dire consequences both for you and your friend.’ He glanced briefly at Ronin and the light turned his left eye into a silver dazzle. Ronin started slightly as the Saardin turned back to Stahlig. A reflection, he thought. But it cannot be, not a flash as bright as that. Then he had it, and now, because he was looking for it, he saw that Freidal’s left eye did not move in its socket.

Stahlig put up his hands. ‘Please, Saardin, you have misunderstood me. I merely thought to reassure—’

‘Medicine Man, permit me to make clear my position. I did not wish to summon you. Your presence here disturbs me. Your friend’s presence here disturbs me. I am thrust deeply into the midst of a highly volatile Security matter with grave ramifications. Had I my way, no one but my hand-picked daggam would have access to these quarters. However, I am now resigned to the fact that such a course is no longer possible. Borros, the Magic Man, is seriously ill, so my Med advisers tell me. They can no longer help him. They say it is beyond them. Hence, a Medicine Man must be summoned if Borros is to live. I wish him to live. Yet I have little patience with your kind. Please attend to him as quickly as possible and leave.’

Stahlig inclined his head slightly, an acknowledgement of Freidal’s authority. ‘As you wish,’ he said softly. ‘However, may I ask you to recount the events immediately prior to Borros’s illness?’ Ronin bristled inwardly at the Medicine Man’s obsequious tone.

‘May I ask what for, sir?’

Stahlig sighed and Ronin observed the lines of tiredness in his face. ‘Saardin, I would not ask you to defend the Freehold with one arm bound to your side. I ask only that you give me the same courtesy.’

‘It is essential, then?’

‘The more information I have, the greater the chance of helping the patient.’

‘All right.’ The Saardin beckoned and a daggam appeared. He had been standing just inside the threshold to the room on the right and they had not noticed him before. A writing tablet lay along the inside of his forearm. In his other hand was a quill with which he drew symbols on the tablet. ‘My scribe is never far from me,’ said the Saardin. ‘He takes down all that I say, and all that is said to me. In this way there can be no—misunderstanding at a later time.’ He looked from the Medicine Man to Ronin and back again with a neutral gaze. It was impossible to guess what he was thinking. ‘He shall read from the report made to me earlier today.’

‘That will be fine,’ said Stahlig. ‘But let us go in first, so that I may see Borros’s condition.’

Freidal bowed stiffly and they moved silently into the shadowy cubicle and over to the cot on which the figure lay. ‘I apologize for the lack of light,’ Freidal said without a trace of regret. ‘The Overheads have recently failed, hence the lamps.’ Two of the familiar clay pots sat on the work table across from the bed, their flames illuminating the room with an uncertain smoky glow.

The figure lay lashed to the bed—an otherwise unremarkable affair consisting of a wooden frame and large, soft pillows—with leather straps around chest and ankles. Both Ronin and Stahlig leaned closer to get a better look in the low light.

In all ways he appeared singular. He was long-waisted with a thick barrel chest and peculiarly narrow hips. His hands had long delicate fingers tipped with protracted, translucent nails. However, most unusual of all was his face. The head, an elongated oval, was entirely without hair, and the skin, drawn tightly over the scalp and high cheekbones, was of a most peculiarly sombre hue with a yellow tinge. His eyes were closed and his breathing was shallow. Stahlig bent at once to examine him.

At that moment the scribe began to recite: ‘“Recorded on the twenty-seventh Cycle of Sajjit—”’

Freidal raised a hand. ‘Just the text, if you please.’

The scribe inclined his head. ‘“Statement of Mastaad, Teck to Borros, Magic Man. We had been working for many Cycles on the final phases of a Project, the goal of which Borros steadfastly refused to confide in me. I did the mixing and controlling of elements, that is all. For several Cycles Borros had been working nonstop. I would leave him at the end of the sixth Spell and when I returned at second Spell, he would be as I had left him, hunching over his table. Three Cycles ago I arrived to find him immensely agitated. But he would tell me nothing, though I begged him for the sake of his health to—”’

‘What are these, Saardin?’ Stahlig interrupted. Throughout the scribe’s recitation, he had been hard at work probing and listening, trying to ascertain the seriousness of the Magic Man’s condition. So he had missed them at first. But he had seen them at last and now he pointed. Ronin bent and saw three small spots, like dark smudges of charcoal, forming a triangle, imprinted on each temple of the hairless head.