The Tower of Fear (37 page)

The darkness was crowded. The troop had a stranger under guard there.

“Colonel bel-Sidek,” Fa’tad said. “I had begun to fear we wouldn’t see you again.”

“But I had to come,” the veydeen replied. “It’s almost time for the fog to roll in.” He sounded amused. “Though I doubt there’ll be any fog tonight, in this.”

Yoseh thought al-Akla sounded like he was trying to suppress excitement when he asked, “Did you get me what I need?”

“No. Unfortunately. The man I thought might know has proven stubborn. He insists he doesn’t know. I’ve come to suspect the chances are at least even that he’s telling the truth.”

Fa’tad did not say anything for a minute. No one else said a thing. Then, “Give him to us. We’d find the truth in an hour.”

“No doubt. And then be dead before morning.”

“Eh?”

“No. I’ve alienated half my organization already. Basically, I’ve bet my life on you as the alternative to the restoration of Nakar. I won’t push the hard-liners any farther.”

Several men growled. A few made threats. The Qushmarrahan said, “Do as you will. But if I’m not back soon the hard-liners will take control. Before dawn the streets will be red with blood. You’ll recall that some misguided Qushmarrahans would rather spill Dartar blood than Herodian.”

Fa’tad grunted. Men stirred angrily. The Eagle said, “Go back to your men. Remember that the sands are running through the glass. A minute of delay may be the minute Nakar needs. Go.”

The Qushmarrahan went, limping.

Someone asked, “How come you turned him loose?”

“He was telling the truth. And I have no wish to leave your body on a Qushmarrahan street, to be torn by dogs and abused by children.”

No one argued with that.

“We aren’t in a position to deal with rebellion. Too much is happening.”

Yoseh was puzzled. But Fa’tad was not going to explain. Fa’tad was being Fa’tad, whose thoughts were known to none.

Yoseh wondered why he did not, at least, have the veydeen followed.

*   *   *

Azel pried himself away from the window. What the hell was he watching for? He couldn’t do anything if he did see something coming.

He needed to move around. His body was going to petrify.

“Getting too damned old,” he muttered, feeling his wounds far more than he would have years ago.

His stomach was a knot. He had not eaten. He had just plain forgot.

He headed downstairs.

He stopped off to mix and gulp an analgesic draft, went on to the kitchen. He ate what was available without complaining. He learned that the stores situation was not as grim as he feared, though there would be nothing fresh for a while.

After eating he limped down to look at Nakar and Ala-eh-din Beyh. Nothing had changed. Unless the darkness was a little deeper.

He stood there a long time, letting silence surround, enfold, enter him. He wondered if the General’s scheme would have worked. Nakar always had possessed a keen sense for danger.

Might still find out if the Witch came around in time.

Yes. It could work out. It could.

“There you are. I heard you were roaming around.”

Startled, Azel faced Torgo. He turned a retort into a grunt. “Catching up on my worrying. Any improvement in her?”

“Not yet.” The eunuch was troubled. “I’ve never seen her sleep so deep so long.”

“She wouldn’t listen.” Azel moved toward the doorway. “But maybe we’re not so pressed. I been watching the Herodians. If they’re trying to get in they’re doing a good job of hiding it.”

“That’s good to hear.” Torgo had something on his mind but could not quite get to it. “I’m going to eat now. Want to come along?”

What the hell? Just as polite, Azel replied, “Sorry. I just ate. Going to go back up and watch now.”

“Later.”

“Sure.”

Azel watched the eunuch out of sight. Maybe he would be easy, after all. The General’s scheme might get its test yet.

With Torgo safely in the kitchen Azel sneaked into the Witch’s bedchamber.

No woman looked her best in the midst of sleep but she looked worse than he expected. She seemed aged a decade since he had seen her last.

He left in a hurry, unsettled, pained.

*   *   *

Colonel Bruda scowled at his visitor. “Don’t press me, Governor. I spent the day in the mud and rain, prospecting for a body I never found. I’ll have more of the same tomorrow if General Cado’s disappearance is a false alarm. If it isn’t, I have my orders. They’re very specific when it comes to dealing with the civil authority.”

Sullo smiled and nodded. He had not yet spoken.

“I’ve been back a half hour and haven’t sat down yet, let alone cleaned up or fed myself. I’m in a bad mood. I won’t play power games. I’ll stick to my orders regardless. Am I clear?”

“Perfectly clear, Colonel. Perfectly. I’ll keep that in mind. Meantime, might I broach the matter which brought me here?”

“Certainly, Governor.” He doubted Sullo would. “Though I’d appreciate brevity. I want to get after this supposed disappearance.” He had Colonel bel-Abek waiting in the next room.

“Of course. I came to express my support and to inquire if the military have prisoners we might use in experiments meant to help penetrate the citadel gate.”

Bruda looked at the man, wondered how he could, without Rose’s knife, put him out of the way neatly, with no kickbacks. Keeping the reins on Qushmarrah would be hard enough without Sullo intriguing and interfering. “I’ll find you some volunteers. How soon do you need them?”

“Annalaya expects to start about midnight.”

Bruda grunted. “I’ll get you started. Now. If you’ll excuse me?”

Sullo smirked. “Of course, Colonel. Of course.”

Bruda turned his back, headed for the next room, determined to find out what had happened. Bel-Abek had been in the middle of it …

*   *   *

Bel-Sidek had not yet wrung himself dry when Zenobel arrived. The man stamped in, stared at him like he did not know whether to be angry or conciliatory.

“You have a problem, Khadifa?” Bel-Sidek could not help being envious of Zenobel. The man remained untouched by the disasters of the war. He was healthy, youthful, virile, handsome, energetic, and his family fortunes had suffered no insurmountable setbacks.

“I may have several. I’m not sure. Is is true you have Carza under arrest?”

That was getting around? How the hell did you get people to keep their mouths shut? “In a manner of speaking. He refuses to respond to an order so I’ve relieved him of the Minisia. I’m holding him here till I get what I want.”

Zenobel eyed him. He met the man’s gaze. Zenobel said, “What’s the problem? Maybe I can talk to him.”

“Maybe.” Bel-Sidek did not think it was likely. Carza did not like Zenobel. On the other hand, they were the same kind of fanatic. Carza might enlist Zenobel in his scheme.

Bel-Sidek began probing Zenobel’s attitude toward the dark gods. Zenobel did not put up with it long. “What’re you doing? I’m as religious as a turnip.”

“Carza was involved with the citadel in a scheme that, through sorcery, would’ve resurrected Nakar.”

Zenobel stared. And kept staring till Bel-Sidek asked, “Are you all right?”

“Why would he want that?”

“Would a resurrected Nakar not deliver Qushmarrah from the Herodian yoke?”

“Let me think for a minute. Hell. How about you fill in a little? Maybe I can get him to see straight. We talk the same language.”

They did that, Bel-Sidek reflected. Why not risk it? The worst would be that he would have to restrain Zenobel, too.

He told the story as he knew it.

Zenobel did not comment for a long time. Finally, he said, “I’ll see what I can do with him. I like the idea of getting the Herodians and Dartars at each other’s throats. That might set the fur flying all along the coast. But don’t you think taking Cado out gives Fa’tad too great an advantage?”

“What do you mean?”

“Ha! Don’t be coy. It’s all over the city. The Living have taken Cado captive. That’s the other reason I came. Bruda has put all Herodian troops on alert. He has patrols in Herodian residential areas to warn Herodian citizens that there may be trouble. The guard on the Gate of Autumn has been trebled. The Dartar compound has been warned to be prepared for civil unrest.”

“That snake!” Bel-Sidek muttered. “That bloody damned snake!” Al-Akla had grabbed Cado and was handing the credit to the Living. Had to be. There was no other explanation.

Though that one did not make much sense.

“What?”

“Nothing. Go see Brother Carza. I have to do some thinking.”

He did a lot of thinking but did not get anywhere. He was not sure where he wanted to go now. He could make no strategic choices because he had no idea what Fa’tad or the Herodians hoped to accomplish, beyond the obvious.

There were tactical steps he could take. He did so, beginning with patrols meant to sweep the neighborhood of watchers.

One possibility nagged: suppose al-Akla had
not
grabbed Cado? Suppose some of his own people, in sympathy with those in the citadel, had?

He was a troubled and beleaguered captain, was Sisu bel-Sidek.

19

Aaron hunched against the wind whipping the rain in under the portico of the Residence. This was not going to work. They would just give him the runaround and not let him see anyone. And right now he was so miserable it was hard to care. Had the citadel not been right there, so close he could sense its evil, he would have gone home.

But it was there, a pitiless reminder that Arif was imprisoned, at the mercy of evil, and he was out here, able to do nothing but this to help.

The man he had spoken to earlier finally returned, seemed surprised to find him still waiting. “The governor will see you, Mr. Habid.” That seemed to surprise him, too. “If you will come with me?” He led the way past blank-faced Moretians. They made Aaron’s skin crawl. He had heard that they ate human flesh.

His guide’s Qushmarrahan was atrocious. Other than native staff, though, who were part of the furniture of the place, and beneath notice by official occupants, he was the one man in the Residence who spoke the language at all.

The man led him to a poorly lighted room where Governor Sullo was watching his witch. She was seated at a table, bent over a chart, using draftsman’s tools, working out something Aaron did not understand.

Governor Sullo greeted him with a limp handclasp and an insincere smile. He jabbered at the man. Aaron caught a few words, though not enough to make sense. He waited for the translation.

Putting it more politely than the governor, the interpreter asked what he wanted.

“I went to Government House but they told me General Cado was unavailable and Colonel Bruda didn’t have time for me and nobody else was authorized to deal with me, so I came here.”

“But what do you want?”

“I want to visit my family. I want to take them home.”

Governor Sullo was impatient with all that and barely pretended that he was not. “Yes. Yes. I understand. We’ll take care of it. You had something to tell us about Fa’tad.”

“Oh. Yes sir. I don’t know if it’s important or not…”

“Will you tell it?” Exasperated.

Good. “Yes sir. Sir, all afternoon and evening Fa’tad and his captains have been in the Shu, especially in my part of Char Street, dashing in and out of the maze.” It came easier than he had expected. He might get through it without freezing up. If the witch did not catch on. She had given him one odd glance but seemed preoccupied, uninterested. “They were excited. After a while I overheard enough to find out why. They found out how to get into the citadel from the maze. When I left to come here they were talking about how they were almost through and pretty soon it would be too late for anybody to keep them from grabbing the treasure. They were asking each other what they were going to do with their shares.”

Was he feeding it to the governor too fast? No. Not with the translation slowing it, keeping Sullo impatient to hear what came next.

“How long?” Sullo demanded, apparently conversant with the myth al-Akla had been spreading. “How long before they penetrate the citadel basements?”

Aaron tried to look bewildered by Sullo’s intensity. Never had a fish been so eager to take the hook. If only the witch didn’t come out of her reverie … “Just before I left, one of them was talking about five more hours.”

“Five hours,” Sullo muttered. “Before dawn. By damn! Carpenter, how long ago was that?”

“I don’t know.” Aaron scratched the back of his neck. “At least two hours. I guess. I went to Government House first. Then I came here. I don’t know how long I was out in the rain, trying to get somebody to talk to me.”

“Two hours? Damn! There might not be time. Thank him and get him out of here.”

As the translator tried to move him out Aaron protested, “What about my family?” He threatened to get stubborn.

Governor Sullo cursed, snatched pen and paper from his witch. She frowned at him momentarily, faded into her thoughts again. He scrawled something, sanded the message, thrust it at Aaron. “Go on! I’m busy.” He turned his back.

Aaron placed the note inside his clothing, safe from moisture, as he allowed himself to be steered toward an exit.

From the Residence he headed straight toward Government House. Along the way a voice from the darkness asked, “How did it go?”

“He swallowed the bait whole. He hardly asked any questions.”

“Excellent.” Footsteps hurried away.

Aaron kept walking toward Government House.

*   *   *

Sullo very nearly did a jig. “Fortune is grinning at me,” he said. “First Cado sends both generals out of the city, then he lets himself get grabbed by these pathetic Qushmarrahan rebels. There’s no one between me and complete control but that fool Bruda. And now this. The citadel on a platter. If I move fast enough to take it before the savages.”

Without looking up Annalaya cautioned, “Fortune wears many faces. Some are deceitful masks.”

“I need Bruda put out of my way.”

She looked up then, her ugly young face empty of expression.

“I know. I know. You don’t want to hurt anybody. So don’t hurt him. Do something that will make it look like he’s had a stroke. I’ll only need a day. That’s time enough to get hold of all the reins. After that if he wants to stay a colonel he’ll do what I tell him.”