The Virgin of Zesh & the Tower of Zanid (15 page)

V

Out in the street, Qais hailed a khizun—an aya-drawn Balhibou hackney-carriage—and got in. Fallon’s spirits rose. It had been some time since he had been able to afford a ride, and Kastambang’s office lay in the commercial Kharju District, over on the far side of the city.

First they wound through the odorous alleys of the A’vaz; then through the section of the northern part of the Izandu. They emerged from this region to pass between the glitter of the theaters of the Sahi on their left and the somber bustle of the industrial Izandu on their right. Smoke arose from busy forges, and the racket of hammers, drills, files, saws, and other tools mingled in a pervasive susurration. Then they clop-clopped along a series of broad avenues which carried them through a little park, across which the wind from the steppes sent little whirls of dust dancing.

At last they plunged into the teeming magnificence of the Kharju with its shops and houses of commerce. As they angled toward the southeast, the city’s one hill, crowned by the ancient castle of the kings of Balhib, rose ahead of them.

“Kastambang’s,” said Qais, pointing with his stick.

Fallon cheerfully let Qais pay the driver—after all, the master spy was merely dipping into the bottomless purse of Ghuur of Uriiq—and followed Qais into the building. There were the usual gatekeeper and the usual central court, variegated with tinkling fountains and statues from far Katai-Jhogorai.

Kastambang, whom Fallon had never met, proved to be an enormous Krishnan with green hair faded to pale jade, his big jowly face furrowed by sharp lines. His tun of a body was swathed in a vermilion toga in the style of Suruskand. Qais, after ceremonious introductions, said: “Sir, we would speak privily.”

“Oh,” said Kastambang. “We can manage, we can manage.”

Without any change of expression he struck a small gong on the desk. A tailed man from the Koloft Swamps of Mikardand stuck his hairy head into the conference room.

“Prepare the lair,” said the banker, then to Fallon: “Will you have a cigar, Earthman? The place will soon be ready.”

The cigar proved excellent. The banker said: “Have you enjoyed our city fair on this visit, Master Turanj?”

“Aye, sir. I went to a play last night: the third of my life.”

“Which one?”

“Saqqiz’s
Woeful Tragedy of Queen Dejanai of Qirib,
in fourteen acts.”

“Found you it effective?”

“Up till about the tenth act. After that the playwright seemed to repeat himself. Moreover, his stage was so littered with corpses that the actors playing quick characters had much ado to avoid stumbling over ’em.” Qais yawned.

Kastambang made a contemptuous gesture. “Sir, this Saqqiz of Ruz is but one of these ultra-clever moderns who, having nought to say, conceal the fact by saying it in the most eccentric manner possible. You’d do better to stick to revivals of the classics, such as Harian’s
Conspirators,
which opens tomorrow night.”

At that moment, the Koloftu reappeared, saying: “ ’Tis ready, master.”

“Come sirs,” said Kastambang, heaving himself to his feet.

He proved less impressive standing than sitting, being short in the legs and moving with difficulty, wheezing and limping. He led them down the hall to a curtained doorway, the Koloftu trailing behind. A flunkey opened the door and Kastambang stood to one side, motioning them in with an expectant air. They stepped into a cage suspended in a shaft. The cage presently sank with jerks while from above came the rattle of gear wheels. Kastambang looked at his passengers with expectation, then with a shade of disappointment. He said: “I forgot, Master Antané. Being from Earth, you must be accustomed to elevators.”

“Why, yes I am,” said Fallon. “But this is a splendid innovation. Reminds me of the lifts in small French hotels on Earth, with a sign saying they may be used only for going up.”

The elevator stopped with a bump against a big leather cushion at the bottom of the shaft. Kastambang’s elevator was, after the Safq, the leading wonder of Zanid, though Qais had ridden in it before and Fallon was hardly awed. It was raised by a couple of stalwart Koloftuma heaving on cranks, while its descent was checked by a crude brake. Fallon thought privately that it was only a matter of time before the lift crew got careless and dropped their master to the bottom of his hidey-hole with a bang. In the meantime, however, the contraption at least saved the financier’s inadequate arches.

Kastambang led his brace of guests along a dimly lighted hall, and around several corners, to a big solid qong-wood door before which stood a Balhibou arbalestier with his crossbow cocked. Fallon observed a transverse slot in the floor a few meters before he reached the door. Glancing up, he saw a matching slot in the ceiling, a portcullis, evidently. The crossbowman opened the door, which was equipped with loopholes closed on the farther side by sliding metal plates, and led the party into a small room with several more doors. A hairy Koloftu stood in front of one door with a spiked club.

This door gave into another small room, containing a man in the Moorish-looking armor of a Mikardando knight with a drawn sword. And this door let into the lair itself: an underground vault of huge cyclopean blocks, with no apertures other than the door and a couple of small ventilation holes in the ceiling.

On the stone floor stood a big table of qong-wood inlaid with other woods and with polished safq-shell in the intricate arabesque patterns of Suria. Around it were ranged a dozen chairs of the same material. Fallon was glad that he had settled among the Balhibuma, who sat on chairs, rather than among some of the Krishnan nations who knelt or squatted or sat cross-legged on the floor like yogis. His joints were getting a little stiff for such gymnastics.

They sat. The Koloft man stood in the doorway.

“First,” said Qais, “I should like to draw two thousand five hundred karda, gold, from my account.”

Kastambang raised his antennae. “Have rumors then come to your ear that the House of Kastambang’s in sore financial straits? If they have, I can assure you they’re false.”

“Not at all, sir. I have a special enterprise.”

“Very well, good my sir,” said Kastambang, scribbling a note. “Very well.”

Kastambang gave directions to the Koloftu, who bowed and disappeared. Qais said: “Master Antané is undertaking a—let us say a journalistic assignment for me. He is to report to me on the interior of the Safq . . .”

Qais gave a few further details, explaining that the money was to be paid to Fallon on the completion of his task. The Koloftu came back with a bag which he set down with a ponderous clank (it weighed over seven kilos). Kastambang untied the drawstring and let the pieces spill out upon the table.

Fallon consciously kept his breath from coming faster; kept himself from leaning forward and glaring covetously at the hoard. A man could spend his whole life on Earth without seeing a golden coin; but here on Krishna, money was still hard, bright clinking stuff that weighed your pants down—real money in the ancient sense—not bits of engraved paper backed by nothing in particular. The Republic of Mikardand had once, hearing of Terran customs, tried paper money. However, the issue of notes had gotten out of hand, and the resulting runaway inflation had prejudiced all the other nations of the Triple Seas against paper money.

Fallon casually took one of the ten-kard pieces and examined it by the yellow lamp-light, turning it over as if it were of mild interest as an exotic curiousum, rather than something for which he would lie, steal, and murder—for the throne that he hoped to recover by means of it.

“Be that arrangement comfortable to you, Master Antané?” asked Kastambang. “Suits it?”

Fallon started: he had gone into a kind of trance staring at the gold piece. He pulled himself together, saying: “Certainly. First, please pay me my hundred . . . Thank you. Now let’s have a written memorandum of the transaction. Nothing compromising, just a draft from Master Turanj.”

“Ohé!”
said Qais. “How shall my friend here be prevented from cashing this draft ere he’s fulfilled his obligation?”

Kastambang said: “In Balhib, we observe the custom of tearing such instrument in half and giving each half to one of the parties. Thus neither can exercise his monetary power without the other. In this case, methinks we’d best tear it in three, eh?”

Kastambang opened a drawer in the table, brought out a stack of forms, and started to fill out one of them. Fallon suggested: “Leave the name of the payee blank, will you? I’ll fill it in later.”

“Wherefore?” asked the banker. “ ’Twill not be safe, for then any knave could cash it.”

“I might wish to use another name—and if it’s in three pieces, it’s reasonably safe. By the way, you have an account with Ta’lun and Fosq in Majbur, don’t you?”

“Aye, sir, aye; we have.”

“Then please make the sum payable there as well as here.”

“Why, sir, why?”

“I might be leaving on a trip after this job’s done,” said Fallon. “And I shouldn’t want to carry all that gold with me.”

“Aye, folk who deal with Master Turanj do oft become appreciative of the benefits of travel.” Kastambang entered a notation on the face of the instrument. When Qais had signed the paper, Kastambang folded it along two creases and tore it carefully into three pieces. One he gave to each of his visitors and one he placed in the drawer, which he locked.

Fallon asked, “In case of argument, will you arbitrate, Kastambang?”

“If Master Turanj agrees,” said the Banker. Qais waved an affirmative.

“Then,” said Kastambang, “you’d best meet again here in my chambers this transaction to consummate, so that I can judge how well Master Antané has carried his end of the ladder. If I award him the fillet, he can, as he likes, take the gold, or all three parts of the draft and get his money in bustling Majbur.”

“Good enough,” said Fallon. “And now perhaps you can help me a bit with this project.”

“Eh? How?” said Kastambang suspiciously. “I am who I am: a banker, sir—no skulking intriguant . . .”

Fallon held up a hand. “No, no. I merely wondered if you, with your extensive connections, knew anybody familiar with the rituals of Yesht.”

“Oho! So that’s how the river runs? Aye, my connections are indeed extensive. Aye, sir, truly extensive. Now let me contemplate . . .” Kastambang put his fingertips together, exactly as his Terran cognate might have done. “Aye, sir, I know one. Just one. But he’ll not give you the secrets of the Safq proper, for he’s never been within the haunted structure.”

“How then does he know the ritual?”

Kastambang chuckled. “Simple. He was a priest of Yesht in Lussar, but under the influence of Terran materialism broke away, changed his identity to avoid being murdered in reprisal, and came to Zanid where he rose in the world of manufacture. As none knows his past save I, for a consideration I can—ah—persuade him to divulge the desired facts . . .”

Fallon said: “Your consideration will have to come out of the funds of Master Turanj, not out of mine.”

Qais yelped a protest, but Fallon stood firm, counting on the Qaathian’s avidity for the information to overcome his thrift. This course proved the correct one, for the master spy and the banker soon agreed upon the price for this transaction. Fallon asked, “Now, who’s this renegade priest?”

“By Bákh, do you think me so simple as to tell you, thus giving you a hold upon him? Nay, Master Antané, nay; he’s already marked as my game, not yours. Furthermore he himself would never consent so openly his past to reveal.”

“What then?”

“What I’ll do is this: Tomorrow evening I give an entertainment at my city house, whither this anonymous turncoat’s bidden, along with many of the leading trees of Zanid.” Kastambang tossed an invitation card across the table.

“Thanks indeed,” said Fallon as he put the card away with studied nonchalance, hardly glancing at it. Kastambang explained: “Come, sir, and I’ll thrust you and him, masked, into a room alone, so that neither shall know the other’s face or have witnesses to the other’s perfidy. Do you own a decent suit of festive raiment?”

“I can get by,” said Fallon, mentally reviewing his wardrobe. This would be a chance to entertain Gazi in style, and stop her yammer about never going out!

“Good!” said the banker. “At the beginning of the twelfth hour on the morrow, then. Forget it not, the twelfth hour.”

###

Krishnan law might lack the careful refinements that Earth had developed to protect the accused, but none could deny its dispatch. The duelists pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct and paid fines, in lieu of being bound over on more serious charges.

On his way out, the Yeshtite, a fellow named Girej, stopped at the witness bench and said to Fallon: “Master Antané, abject apologies for my unmannerly words last night. When I came to my senses I recalled that ’twas you who with your bill struck up the brand of the accursed Krishnan Scientist when he’d have transfixed me therewith. So thank you for my poor life.”

Fallon made a never-mind gesture. “That’s all right, old man; merely doing my duty.”

Girej coughed. “To aby my discourtesy, perhaps you’d let me buy you a cup of kvad in slender token of my gratitude?”

“You don’t even have to be grateful to do that, if you’ll wait around until this next case is disposed of.”

The Yeshtite agreed, and Fallon was called up to the stand to testify about the robber. (The one whom he had speared was too badly hurt to be tried, and the other was still at large.) The prisoner, one Shavé, being taken in
flagrante delicto,
was tried at once and convicted.

The magistrate said: “Take him away, torture him until he reveals the name of his other accomplice, and strike off his head. Next case.”

Fallon slouched out arm in arm with Girej the Yeshtite; he always encouraged such contacts, in the hope of picking up useful information. They wandered over to a tavern where they restored their tissues while Girej garrulously reiterated his gratitude. He said: “Ye not only save a citizen of our fair albeit windy city, Master Antané, from an untimely and unjust end—ye also saved a fellow-guardsman.”