The Tower of Fear (40 page)

“Nothing yet. Still.” Azel turned back to the window. “Wait. Here comes their witch.”

Torgo crowded up beside him. He had to work to hide his true feelings about the eunuch’s proximity. Torgo said, “I thought she belonged to the Herodians.” She was surrounded by Dartars who looked ready for trouble.

“Maybe they got something she can’t do without.” Azel regretted the remark instantly but its cruelty went right past Torgo. Azel shrugged, paid attention to what was happening down there. He laughed suddenly, a near roar of tension flooding away.

“What?” Torgo demanded. “Why are you howling like a hyena?”

“Look! We got all the time we’re ever going to need. She ain’t working on the Postern of Fate, she’s pecking on the fake pattern Nakar put in front of the main gate. She can mess with that forever and not get anywhere because there ain’t nowhere to go.”

Torgo looked. He was grinning when he pulled back.

Azel went to work. This was a good time to let Torgo get a solid idea that he might have help if he decided it would not be a good plan for Nakar to hang around after he kicked ass on the Herodians.

Azel chuckled. Let Torgo take care of old Nakar and set it up so the Witch saw the eunuch do it, and who did that leave to pick up the pieces and comfort the widow and help straighten out Qushmarrah?

It was a long chance. But it sure as hell wasn’t as long as it had been when he’d begun playing the game.

He leaned forward again. This time he spotted the father of the chosen brat with the sorceress and Dartars. Bastard was in for some heartbreak, wasn’t he?

Azel pulled back. “Why don’t we go down, get us something to eat and maybe get drunk while those idiots are pounding their heads bald on the wrong stone wall?”

*   *   *

Bel-Sidek eased back from the edge of the flat roof when he heard someone coming up. He sat up in a puddle, already wetter than a fish. Zenobel and Carza appeared. Carza was still angry. Zenobel nodded wearily. He had gotten through at last.

Bel-Sidek said, “We’re all here now,” needlessly, to the other khadifas, who had been with him for some time, without enthusiasm. “You look like you have something to tell us, Zenobel.”

“Just the latest. They have the whole wall except around the Gate of Autumn. They’re ignoring that. They have patrols all over the city, keeping people off the streets. They’re only looting Herodian property.”

“So far,” King Dabdahd grumbled.

“So far,” Zenobel agreed. “They don’t get into the citadel pretty soon, I think they’ll grab whatever they can get. They’ll want to be long gone when Nakar comes around.”

“But Nakar isn’t. We’re not going to let him.”

“Fa’tad doesn’t know that.”

“Yes, he does,” bel-Sidek said. He was unsure what to think about Fa’tad’s actions. The notion that he meant to loot Qushmarrah and head for his native mountains, where he would be safe from retribution, seemed too direct and simple. “In the sense that he knows I’ll do everything I can to stop it.”

Gold, silver, and jewels were as valuable to Dartars as to anyone and Fa’tad had said he wanted the treasures of the citadel for his people, so they could buy their way out of the grip of famine. But if he plundered Qushmarrah and left an angry coast behind, where would he spend his treasure?

The others looked at bel-Sidek, less than honoring, waiting for him to drop some pearl of wisdom they could condemn or contradict. He said nothing. He preferred to let someone else start the inevitable argument.

Salom Edgit obliged. “What’re we going to do?” His tone implied that someone was ducking hard choices. This Salom Edgit who, a few days ago, had had no faith in the future or movement.

“We’re not going to do anything. For now.”

“What?” They looked at him with varying expressions. Carza was furious.

“Is there any sensible reason to get our men killed while Fa’tad isn’t bothering anyone but Herodians? If he turns on our people we’ll respond. Meantime, let his men take the brunt. We’ll conserve strength and trickle it into areas where concentrations will be useful if we do have to fight.”

Zenobel protested. “But honor…”

“Honor hasn’t got a damned thing to do with it. And never has. All right. Say we try to get even for Dak-es-Souetta. Our men are poorly armed and out of training and not all of them are anxious to fight, anyway. Win or lose, we’d suffer badly. Say we did smash Fa’tad. Then with whatever we had left we’d had to deal with the surviving Herodians, then with the expeditions Cado sent out when they return, then with whatever Herod sends to restore order.”

“You have a negative outlook, bel-Sidek.”

“Would you say it’s unrealistic?”

“Damn it, no! I hate it, but you’re right.”

Carza snapped, “Yet with Nakar restored we’d suffer none of those weaknesses.”

King said, “I’d sooner swear allegiance to Herod.”

Carza seemed baffled.

Smugly, bel-Sidek asked, “Have you forgotten what it was like when Nakar was alive?”

“No,” Carza snapped back. “I haven’t forgotten.” His anger was in check by the strength of a whisker.

Carza’s family had been favored under the old order. So some there were who would welcome a restoration, not having had to bear the weight of the sorcerer’s previous incarnation.

For some reason bel-Sidek thought of the carpenter Aaron with his powerful resentments of those who had ruled before the conquest. There were tens of thousands of Aarons in Qushmarrah and they could well represent an additional factor in the already confused power equation.

Only Nakar the Abomination had been strong enough to rule without some degree of consent from the ruled.

The argument sputtered on without bel-Sidek contributing, reason gradually conquering passion. Carza’s view won no support. Bel-Sidek watched the Dartars move around in front of the citadel.

Speak of the devil! There the carpenter was, right in the middle of things.

But would he not be at that gate himself if it was his son imprisoned and scheduled for sacrifice? Hell, yes. And damned be the politics.

He could find nothing in his heart with which to condemn the man. “Carza. Will you come look at those people and see if you can tell what they’re doing?”

Carza did as he was told, with poor grace.

What kind of rule could they provide, should they come to power, when they could not manage courtesy, or even civility, among themselves?

A nasty thought tracked across his mind. If Herod and Fa’tad were pushed out, there might be a bloody period till a strongman emerged. And that man was unlikely to be Colonel Sisu bel-Sidek. He did not have the backing. Pressed, he would have to bet on Zenobel.

It was something to consider in his spare moments. His companions would be thinking about it, not that the possibility of independence actually existed.

Carza snorted, then laughed softly. “The fools are going at it from the wrong direction. They can’t get in through the main gate.”

Bel-Sidek’s stomach knotted suddenly. No! So much time had fled already. For all anyone knew they were bringing Nakar around right now …

He wished to hell he had some idea what was going on in there.

He tried to put that out of mind. Too much fear came with those thoughts. His stated attitudes condemned him as surely as any Dartar or Herodian should Nakar make his return.

King Dabdahd crept up beside him. “You were always the genius staffer, bel-Sidek. The strategist the old man counted on. What would you do with the citadel if you grabbed it? You think Fa’tad might?”

It was not like King to dither and flutter around the edges of something but it was not like him to have an original thought, either. Clearly, he had had one. He did not want to state it plainly because someone might laugh.

Bel-Sidek saw it clearly enough. “You could be right.”

Fa’tad might want the citadel itself as much as the treasures inside it. From within its impenetrable walls he could scour the city of every valuable before he left for his mountains—or he could stay and rule, harvesting Qushmarrah’s wealth slowly and more certainly. He might even rule with a certain benevolence, restricting his predations to Herodians and those who declared themselves his enemies.

He’d then have a place to spend treasures for the benefit of his people.

At last bel-Sidek thought he saw the true face of Fa’tad’s ambition. An ambition that would live or die according to whether or not he took the citadel before Nakar quickened.

“You’re right, King. Thanks for making me see it. I’ll give it some thought.” What it meant, though, he feared, was that the Living would have to try to prevent it—with all that implied in lives wasted and new vulnerabilities.

Salom Edgit asked, “Do we all have to be up here for this? I could use a chance to dry out.”

“I can go along with that,” Carza said.

Bel-Sidek nodded. Still, someone had to keep an eye on the Dartars. He asked for a volunteer, got King Dabdahd. The rest headed for shelter and continued debate.

*   *   *

The fleet from Qushmarrah reached the far shore of the Gulf of Tuhn sooner than anticipated. The weather was more hospitable there. The troops were ashore and ready to greet the Turoks before nightfall. Whatever happened elsewhere, those raiders would be numbered among General Lentello Cado’s triumphs.

Not a soul witnessed the Herodian landing.

*   *   *

Zouki followed Arif wherever he went, whatever he did. Arif fled, dismayed by the look in Zouki’s eyes, a terrible but unreasoning look. A beast look.

What did it mean? His young mind could not make sense of it. It was merely another fright among many.

The big man and another came to the cage. Arif was terrified. Something about the shorter man … Zouki was frightened, too. He ran to hide with the rock apes, though he remembered nothing directly.

The two men stared at Arif and spoke too softly to be overheard. Arif was sure they were talking about him. He wanted to run and hide, too, but was petrified. He did not want to get closer to Zouki, either. And there was nowhere else to run.

One of the girls came to Arif after the men left. She just stared at him. That made him uncomfortable. He said, “My dad will get me out.” He wanted to believe that so badly he had convinced himself it was true.

Belief made the terror almost bearable.

21

Aaron felt like a clown, carrying a knife and a sword. He could not help thinking his Dartar companions found him amusing. What did he know about swords? He had not had one in hand for six years and even back then all he’d done was keep his blade clean and sharp and oiled. That night in his own home was the only time he’d seriously tried to kill somebody.

Then he looked at the Dartars more closely. It was unlikely many were more experienced than he. They were too young. Fa’tad would have his veterans placed where the chances of real fighting were greatest. The advantage these boys had was that they had grown up in a harsher environment and fiercer culture.

The Herodian sorceress chattered steadily. Even Nogah could make no sense of what she said. He sent for someone to interpret.

The man who came was an older Dartar who made the youngsters nervous, obviously someone whose good opinion meant a lot to them.

“Mo’atabar,” Yoseh told Aaron. “Our captain’s second and a friend of our father. Having him here is like having Father’s ghost watching over our shoulders.” The boy was determinedly on his best behavior.

Mo’atabar translated as the sorceress rattled on. At first it seemed she was just talking to herself, thinking out loud, making little sense. Then she said something about men watching them. Everyone responded as though to an unexpected thunderclap. It took Mo’atabar a minute to stop her and back her up.

“Two men watching from the citadel, in the top of that tower.” She pointed with her nose. “Another half dozen on the roof of the red and white three-storey building with the balconies, there on the edge of the square.”

Aaron tried to appear unconcerned as he glanced that way. She meant the home of that crazy woman who owned the ships. He spied the silhouette of a head. The light was too poor and the distance too great to make out any features.

Mo’atabar said it. “The Living. They have been quiet as mice but you know they’re out there watching. Faruk, come here.” Mo’atabar whispered to the younger Dartar, who then ambled off toward the Residence.

The sorceress was on to something else now, muttering about the job at hand. “Something wrong with this pattern. Doesn’t feel like it goes anywhere. Almost like it folds in on itself. When am I going to get someone I can experiment with?”

“Soon,” Mo’atabar promised. “I just sent a man to find out.”

Liar, Aaron thought, catching enough of that to understand. Whatever message Faruk had carried, it had had to do with the Living. No one ever told the truth. Everyone was maneuvering and trying to manipulate everyone else. Which said what about his place in the middle of things?

He did not see how he could be any use to anyone anymore. The Dartars were paying him off by letting him tag along. Unless they used him as a symbol, a banner to be trotted out and pointed at as an inspiration for a noble cause.

He tried not to think of Arif, or of Arif’s proximity, maybe no more than a stone’s throw away. He had to keep his head.

A troop of Dartar horsemen passed, coming from the direction of the Residence, looking like they were headed for trouble. Mo’atabar hailed their captain, who said they were headed into the Shu where some of the trapped Herodians had broken through a third-level closure and were trying to fight their way out of the maze. The outbreak had been contained but it needed to be pushed back and the breach sealed again. Right now there was fierce fighting on the tiers above the place where Aaron lived.

A moment of panic.

Then reason returned, accompanied by the realization that most of any bloodletting would take place in the Shu because most of Herod’s men were there.

“Yoseh, I need to get my family out of that. They’ll be in the middle of it.”

The boy looked at him like he wondered why he was wasting time. “I’ll tell Mo’atabar.”