The Tower of Fear (27 page)

Yoseh said his farewells and watched them go. He had disappointed Arif severely, he knew, being more interested in the girl than in him. But what could you do? How could you explain?

Mo’atabar went on down the hill. Nogah went back and sat down, preoccupied.

“What’s up?” Medjhah asked.

“Joab. He’s taking fifteen hundred men out to chase those Turoks.”

That scaly thing inside Yoseh wakened and started wriggling.

“We going?”

“No. We’re staying to play Fa’tad’s game. He’s taking all horsemen. He wants to hurry and get between the Turoks and the herd. Just in case.”

Yoseh tried not to show his relief. There was nothing dishonorable about it but he did not want to admit that he had no taste for fighting and glory and riding around in the weather.

There were a few more clouds now. The veydeen did not seem excited so it seemed unlikely they would turn to rain. He wished it would rain.

*   *   *

The city was a madhouse. Troops were on the move, headed south to assemble outside the Gate of Summer, whence they would march before sunrise. Azel was not pleased by the dislocations. They made it difficult to be as cautious as he liked.

What about tomorrow, when the garrison was reduced? Would the Living’s crazies make themselves heard?

Something. From somewhere. He felt the first tingle of it. He did not like it because he had no idea from what direction disaster might strike.

He took position in sight of the place where Ishabal bel-Shaduk lived in the northern Shu. He watched for an hour. Several men visited. He recognized two as thugs. Guys who would do anything for money.

He had a notion what bel-Shaduk was doing. He did not like it.

He’d thought bel-Shaduk possessed of better sense.

Gold and women had their ways of dribbling blindness into even a wise man’s eyes.

The day was getting on. If he wanted to get out the Gate of Autumn and back with plenty of time he’d better waste no more here.

He overtook the cavalcade moving the old man two miles east of the Dartar compound. The new gimp General told him to get up inside the covered wagon where the stiff lay.

One look at that black print and he knew his suspicions were fact.

The damn woman had gone mad! She would set the city on fire.

And she didn’t care. That was the hell of it.

He climbed out of the wagon, drifted back to walk beside the gimp on his donkey. A comedown for him. He’d probably ridden a purebred stallion out to Dak-es-Souetta. “I got an idea where to start looking.”

“Where? Who?”

“I’ll let you know if it comes out sure. Meantime, I got a suggestion. Burn the old boy. Don’t bury him.”

“Immolation is a rite of Gorloch, not of Aram.”

“How many people going to be involved in this, eh? All of them mourning the beloved General. What chance you figure there is all of them will keep their mouths shut about who, what, and where? Cado gets the word, he’s going to have the old boy dug up and paraded around.”

“I’ll think about it.”

Dumb shit. He was asking for it. “You put some time in on the new governor and his witch, too. There’s something more there than meets the eye. Talk to you more when we get together. I got something else I got to do right now.”

He turned and headed west.

There was a lot of traffic on the road. Too much. How much had to do with the funeral? He checked faces. A few were familiar. He remembered them all. It was a habit he had, one he followed unconsciously sometimes even when he was aware of no need. Thus he noticed two particular faces among the inevitable beggars and loafers inside the Gate of Autumn.

He had seen one for the first time not far from where Ishabal bel-Shaduk lived. He’d last seen the other in the halls of Government House.

So.

He did not lead them an interesting chase. He went to Muma’s, where he spent the afternoon and early evening eating, thinking, and carefully, laboriously composing a long letter to General Cado. He entrusted that to Muma’s youngest, a quickwitted urchin, and relaxed with some black-market beer before he went out for the night’s work.

*   *   *

Meryel guided bel-Sidek to a mound of cushions. “You look awful tonight. If you’ll pardon me saying so.”

“I can pardon you anything if you can pardon me.”

She looked at him curiously but did not pursue it while her servants came and went with the courses of their meal. Then she asked. He told her about his day.

“Murdered? You’re sure?” She did not seem interested in his conduct while questioning the traitor’s wife.

“It seems more likely all the time. The trouble is, I can’t see who would have gained by getting him out of the way.”

“One of the fanatics, getting impatient?”

“No. They honored him too much. Besides, getting him out of the way just puts me in the way. Tonight I intend to name another moderate as my successor so there’s nothing to gain getting rid of me, either.”

“Could it be the governor’s witch getting even for what happened to his guards?”

“Not unless she’s one hell of a diviner. I think he died before they did. Herodians would have taken him alive, anyway. Sullo laying hands on the mastermind of the Living so soon after getting here would have been a political deathblow for Cado. There are people in Herod who want his head. He survives because he’s competent, he has several very powerful friends, and he has the indulgence of the Living.”

“Hubris?”

“Fact. We could cause trouble enough to get him taken out. If a Herodian must rule here, we’d prefer General Cado. None of the likely replacements would be so kind to Qushmarrah. I’d better go. We have a lot to argue out.”

Meryel rose with him. She said, “I have a few contacts among those who operate outside anybody’s law. I’ll ask them if they’ve heard anything that might have something to do with the old man’s death.”

Bel-Sidek paused at the door. “All right. Also find out what they know about a child-stealing ring. And about a man named Azel.” He slipped out, not at all eager to face what lay ahead. But they did have to decide who should take over in the Shu and who should take over most of his own duties on the waterfront.

Too, he hoped to discover if there had been some dark side to the old man that, in his love, he had been unable to see.

*   *   *

The Witch moaned, twitched uncontrollably. Her flesh was beyond her command. All her will was bent upon the child, that stubborn brat.

Three times she had tried to breach the barrier of trauma. Three times she had been repelled. Never had she encountered such resistance. The previous life must have ended terribly.

She gathered her remaining reserves, feeble after half a day in trance. One last effort … No matter. This could not be the one she sought. Azel could have him and welcome.

Her thoughts were not that clear. They constituted more an instinctual flow than actual reasoning.

Once more she advanced upon the child’s defenses. And this time found a tiny crack. She focused upon it, struck with all the remnants of her strength …

And screamed. And screamed.

Terror squeezed her heart.

The soul on the other side was that of Ala-eh-din Beyh. It was not lost. It was not bewildered. It had been lying in ambush.

*   *   *

Torgo did not think. Instinct drove him. He plunged inside the tent, fists flying. He knew what had happened without having to think it out.

He struck child and woman with powerful blows to the head. The shock broke the link. The devil in the child tumbled back into the abyss. But it did not vanish completely. Torgo felt the power there.

The Witch’s screams waned. She lapsed into a deep sleep, maybe a coma. Torgo destroyed the tent, killed the fire in the braziers, fanned fumes away. Tears stained his cheeks.

Had he been fast enough?

She should have foreseen this. She should have trained him for this. In his ignorance all he could do now was watch and wait and hope that Gorloch would be merciful and permit her return from that far darkness into which she had fallen.

Power streamed from the child.

Outside, clouds began to gather.

13

Aaron entered the house and found the females all prickly and sullen. “Now what?” He was not in the mood for it. Things had not gone well at work that afternoon. The Herodians were sorting themselves out to line up behind the civil or military governors and were trying to frustrate one another by giving conflicting orders to their Qushmarrahan employees.

Arif said, “Nana’s mad at Mish because she took Yoseh some food.”

Mish said, “You
told
me to do it.”

“A damn fool idea, Aaron,” Raheb said. “And you didn’t have to behave like a trull, Tamisa.”

Laella snapped, “She did nothing of the sort, Mother. Tamisa, you shouldn’t have spent all that time talking to him. It didn’t look right.”

“Maybe I just wanted to hear somebody talk who could say a whole sentence without cutting me down or bellyaching about something.”

Point to Mish, Aaron thought.

Stafa said, “I ride horsy, Dad.”

“You did? Arif, come here. Tell me what you and Stafa did today while Mom and Mish finish getting supper ready.”

The women got the message.

It was not a world where women dared long exasperate even a man as gentle as Aaron.

He took Stafa into his lap and Arif under his right arm and they talked about camels and such till it was time to eat. The boys were exceptionally quiet during the meal. The women said nothing. He supposed he must be looking very fierce. Maybe they were all waiting for some giving of the law.

Let them stew. He could use the quiet.

It did not last, of course. But the women were not the instrument of its death.

There was, to his dismay, a tapping at the door. He was more dismayed when he opened it to find Reyha and Naszif outside. He stepped out of their way. They came in without saying anything. Both looked awful. Laella rose slowly, face pallid, as though some horror had come through the doorway with them.

Laella held Reyha for a moment, then helped her sit down. Naszif settled beside her, opposite Aaron. They looked one another in the eye, each knowing what the other knew. Mish moved the boys away.

Naszif said, “Reyha told you some things she would have been wiser to have kept to herself, as she learned today. She had a visit from the Living. Now you’re in it, too, like it or not. The Living will be watching.”

Reyha stared at her folded hands.

“She came to see you last night. This morning they came to see her. They knew she’d come into Char Street but not where she’d gone. They wanted to know that, and who she’d seen, and what she talked about. They were insistent. A very important man of theirs was murdered last night, here in Char Street, about the time she was out, and they think they have reason to believe a woman was responsible.”

“Bel-Sidek’s father!” Aaron blurted.

“Eh?”

“The old soldier who lives up the street.”

“Khadifa,” Raheb interjected.

Aaron scowled at her. “The old guy with the bad leg from Dak-es-Souetta. When I was going out to work this morning there were people at his house. I got nosy and went up there. He told me his father died during the night. I wasn’t surprised because the old man had been bedridden since they moved in.”

“Bel-Sidek,” Naszif mused. “That fits. He sounds like the man who visited Reyha. He had a bad leg. She’d seen him before but didn’t recall who he was. He knew all of us. He didn’t really believe Reyha had done anything. He thought she had come here to visit Laella. But he wanted to be sure.”

Aaron was disturbed by the man opposite him. This was not the Naszif to whom he was accustomed. This Naszif was calm, collected, in complete control, and altogether too businesslike. He did not know what to make of the apparent change.

Naszif continued, “Reyha can be very stubborn. She refused to tell them anything till they gave Zouki back.”

“Which they refuse to do because they’d lose their hold on you.”

“No. According to the crippled man they can’t do that because they don’t have him in the first place.”

“What?”

“Yes. Despite the fact that they took me to see Zouki last night, this morning one of them is denying that they have him. And I think he was sincere. If he’d had that advantage he would have used it. On the other hand, Reyha thinks she recognized the voice of one of the men with the cripple, subject to his orders, as that of one of the men who took me away last night.”

Aaron had begun to get a bad feeling about this Naszif that he did not know. He was up to something.

“Is there something going on inside the Living? Are there factions operating without recourse to the established chain of command?”

“What are you doing, Naszif?”

“Thinking out loud. Consider. I’m sure the man who took me out last night, and who was with bel-Sidek today, is a character named Hadribel. Hadribel is the number two man of the Living in the Shu. He was taking orders from bel-Sidek. And bel-Sidek said, at least by implication, that the man who had died was more important than him. Who was that man, really? And who would dare murder him?”

“That’s enough, Naszif. I’ve figured out what you’re doing. I’m not going to let you use me. You had your one shot at getting me killed and got away with it. You don’t get a second chance.”

Naszif frowned, pretending he did not understand.

“Almost two hundred from our tower survived the Herodian prison camps, Naszif. Most of them came back to Qushmarrah. Some work down at the yard. You remember Big Turi? Bad Turi we called him sometimes. What do you think Turi would do if someone told him it was our buddy Naszif that opened that postern that night?”

Naszif looked troubled. Laella said, “Aaron! You stop that kind of talk.”

“Be quiet. And use your head. What happens after he fills me up with everything he knows or guesses? The Herodians somehow get a sign, they grab me, and Naszif gets his message through. So what if old Aaron gets himself busted up some while they’re getting him to tell them what he wants them to know? He gets rid of Aaron and he gets rid of one of the ways he’s vulnerable.”