The Tritonian Ring and Other Pasudian Tales (11 page)

             
"I doubt that last. Neither is of royal blood and therefore neither could cherish regal ambitions."

             
Vakar smiled. "That is no sure barrier. How do you suppose most dynasties were founded in the first place?"

             
"Well, neither have I quarreled with either lately— unless you count my refusal to follow Garal's counsel to wed Shvo Zhyska."

             
"He so advised you? Hang the hyena! I know Shvo well, being his cousin. He is as grasping as a
Kernean
and as perfidious as an Aremorian."

             
"I am not likely to follow Garal in this matter. But we are not even sure' the serpent came to life by human agency, instead of in the course of the natural termination of the enchantment that bound it
...
Fetch your sword and cloak while I likewise dress for the street."

             
"Where are we going?"

             
"In such perplexities I consult
a
wise-woman nearby. Hasten, and meet me here."

             
Vakar went. When he returned with the hood of his cloak pulled up over his helmet he found
a
very different
Porfia with peasant's cowhide boots showing under her short street-dress, a hood pulled over her head likewise, and a scarf masking her face below the eyes.

             
Porfia led Vakar out the front entrance, where he took a torch from a bracket. She guided him into the stinking tangle of alleys west of the plaza in front of the palace, where not even the starlight penetrated.

             
Porfia made a sharp turn and stopped to rap with a peculiar knock on a door. They waited, and the door opened with a creak of the door-post in its well-worn sockets.

             
They were ushered in by a small bent black figure whose only visible feature was a great beak of a nose sticking
Out
from under her cowl. Inside, a single rush-candle lent its wan
il
lumination to a small cluttered room with a musty smell. A piece of papyrus on which were drawn figures and glyphs lay on a three-legged table with one leg crudely mended.

             
The witch mumbled something and rolled up the papyrus. Porfia said:

             
"Master Vakar, this is my old friend Charsela. I need not tell her who you are, for she will have already discovered that by her occult arts."

             
The witch raised her head so that Vakar could see the gleam of great dark eyes on either side of the beak.

             
"Now do you know," quavered the crone, "I cannot tell you one thing about this young man? It is as if a wall against all occult influence had been built around him at birth. I can see that he is a Pusadian, probably of high rank, and that he is by nature a quiet scholarly fellow forced by his surroundings to assume the airs of a rough predacious adventurer. That much, however, any wise person could have inferred by looking at him with the eye of understanding. But come, child, tell me what troubles you this time.
Another philtre to keep that sneering scapegrace true?"

             
"No, no," said Porfia hastily, and went on to recount the strange tale of the serpent throne.

             
"Ha," said Charsela and got out a small copper bowl which she filled with water and placed on the table.

             
She lit a
second
rushlight, placed it in a small metal holder, and stood the holder on the table. She rummaged in the Utter until she found a small phial from which she dropped one drop of liquid into the water. Vakar, looking at the bowl, had an impression of swirling iridescence as
the drop spread over the surface. Charsela put away the phial and sat down on the side of the table opposite the flame, so that she could see the reflection of the flame on the water.

             
Charsela sat so long that Vakar, standing with his back to the door, shifted his position slightly,
causing
his sword to clink. Porfia frowned at him. Somewhere under the junk a mouse rustled; at least Vakar hoped that it was a mouse. He shifted his gaze from the motionless wise-woman to a large spider spinning a web on the ceiling. At last the witch's thin voice came:

             
"It is strange—I can see figures, but all is dim and confused. There is some mighty magic involved in this, mark my word. I will try some more
...
"

             
She put another drop from the phial into the bowl and fell silent again. Vakar was watching her sunken face in the rushlight when the door burst open behind him with a crash.

             
Vakar saw the witch and Porfia jerk their heads up to stare past him, and started to turn his own head then a terrific blow clanged down upon his helm and sent him sprawling forward.

             
He fell against the table, which overturned with a clatter as the bowl and the rushlight struck the floor. Charsela and Porfia both shrieked.

             
Finding himself on hands and knees with his head spinning, Vakar by a desperate effort sprang to his feet, whirled, and drew his sword all at once. He got the blade out just in time to parry another overhand cut at his head. By the light of the remaining candle he saw that three men had burst into the room, all masked.

-

             
Vakar thrust at the nearest, the one whose cut he had just parried. As the man stepped back his foot slipped on the wet floor where the water from the upset bowl had run around the table and made the worn planking slippery. Before he could recover, Vakar drove his blade past the fellow's awkward attempt at a parry, deep into the folds of the man's clothing. He felt his point pierce meat.

             
"Get her out, Charsela!" yelled Vakar, not daring to turn his head.

             
The man whom he had stabbed fell back with a gasp, clutching his side with his free hand. Behind him Vakar became dimly aware of a yammering from the witch and an expostulation from Porfia, and the sound of a back door opening and banging shut again. Meantime he was engaged with the other two, who were stumbling around among the junk and trying to get at him from two sides. Blades clanged as the two bravoes drove Vakar, fighting a desperate defensive, back into a corner. With a shield and the advantage of left-handedness he might have handled them, but he had no shield and did not dare stoop for the witch's stool.

             
Instead he reached into his shirt and pulled out the poisoned dagger that had already saved his life once that night. The poison, he thought, must have pretty well worn off by now, but at least it might furnish a diversion. He threw it at the shorter of the two men.

             
The man tried to dodge. The knife struck him anyway, but butt-first, so that it clanged harmlessly to the floor. The man's attention had however been distracted, and even the other man let his eyes flicker from Vakar to the flying dagger.

             
Instantly Vakar threw himself forward, and his ferocious
passado
went through the throat of the tall assassin. At that instant he felt a heavy blow and the sting of a cut on his right arm. The shorter man, recovering from his attempt to duck the knife, had thrown a backhand slash at the Lorskan.

             
As Vakar, withdrawing his point from the tall man, half-turned to face his remaining
assailant, that
one skipped back out of reach before Vakar could get set for a blow. The tall man dropped his sword, clutched at his throat, gave a gurgling cough, and began to sink to the floor. The man whom Vakar had first wounded was hobbling towards the door, but now the unhurt man turned, knocked the wounded one aside, and dashed out.

             
Vakar leaped over the body on the floor and made for the wounded man, meaning to finish him with a quick thrust. The wounded man had been knocked down by the one who fled and was now just getting up, crying: "Quarter!"

             
The man's mask had come off in the fracas, and just before he sent the blade home Vakar jerked to a halt at the sight of a familiar face. A closer look showed that the man was Abeggu of Tokalet, the foreign friend of Thiegos at the rowdy supper-party at the palace.

             
"Lyr's barnacles!" cried Vakar, holding his sword poised. "What are you doing here? It will take uncommon eloquence to talk
yourself
out of this!"

             
The man stammered in his thick accent: "Th-thiegos told me I w-was to help thwart a plot against the queen. He never—never told me you were involved, and when I found out, it was too late to ask for explanations."

             
"Thiegos?" said Vakar, and bent to jerk the scarf from the face of the dead man.

             
Sure enough, the corpse was that of Thiegos, Queen
Porfia
's paramour.

             
Prince Vakar whistled. Either Thiegos had been in on the serpent-throne scheme, or had been smitten with jealousy of Vakar Zhu because of the latter's attention to the queen and had gathered a couple of friends to do the traveller in. Luckily they had not known that Vakar wore a helmet under his cowl, or he would have been choosing his next incarnation by now.

             
He looked at his wounded arm. The bloodstain was still spreading and the arm was hard to move. The hut was empty; Charsela must have pushed Porfia out the back door.

             
"Well," said Vakar, "this is the first time
a
man has tried to kill me because of my singing! What else do you know of this attentat?"

             
"N-nothing, sir.
I am ashamed to admit that when the snake came to life I fled with the rest. Thiegos and I went to my lodgings near the palace to drink a skin of wine to steady our nerves and collect our wits. Then Thiegos left me to return to the palace. A little later, just as I was going to sleep, he came back with another man, saying for me to come quickly with my sword." Abeggu gulped.

             
"Go on."

             
"I—I do not know how to use the thing properly, as we Gamphasants are a peaceful people. I bought it merely as an ornament. When we entered here they pushed me forward to take the first shock; a fine friend
he
was! This is all most confusing and unethical; I hope the people back in Tokalet never hear of it. Was there in sooth a plot against the queen?"

             
"Not unless your friend Thiegos was hatching one. I am probably foolish to let you go, but I cannot butcher one who comes from the rim of the world to seek philosophy. Go, but if you cross my path again
...
"

             
Vakar made a jabbing motion, and Abeggu, still bent over with pain, hurried out.

             
Vakar looked out the door after him, but except for the wounded Gamphasant nobody was in sight. If any neighbors had heard the clash of arms they had prudently kept their curiosity in check.

             
Should he go back to the palace? Much as he liked Porfia, he was not sure that when she learned that he had slain her lover she would not, in a transport of emotion, have him dispatched out of hand. She might regret the action later, but that would not help him if his head were already rotting on a spike on the palace wall.

             
No,
a
quick departure would be more prudent. He took a last look at the corpse, recovered his dagger, and hurried out in his turn.