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  Once Uka was born, Osa asked to be employed in the household of the Red Tellar. It was one of Ranell’s first decisions in the absence of his father. He made a point of visiting her often to see how she fared after the birth, and seemed to dote on little Uka. He was a gentle soul, a kind man.

  She intended to drive a wedge between Ranell and his betrothed, Lorar. It had already begun over the talk with the baron.

  And then she would have Ranell to herself. “Soon,” she promised little Uka, “soon.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  SMALTHOUSE

  “Is there no way out of my demented mind?”

  - Where. A Tear by Laan Gib (1830-1998AC)

  Nemond palace, sector three, Old City, Lornwater.

  Light from night sconces glimmered on the disturbed countenance of Nemond Thand. The flaming torches mocked him, his wife Tantian thought; for he was scarred on the right cheek and down the right arm as a result of an earlier palace fire. Luckily, his long blond hair hadn’t been burned and hung in a single bound braid that reached his buttocks. His bronzed visage was truly horrifying as he fulminated and paced across the room, pallid lips curled in self-disgust. His eyes were dewdrop in shape, the right one slightly lower; those honey-coloured eyes now glared without intelligence. His quavering words were slurred, unintelligible to her. Yet she knew he was not drunk. The demons he raged against did not spring from a bottle, but from his troubled mind. At times like this, her heart felt as if it would break. He was exhibiting dementia normally found in someone a great deal older than his forty-six years.

  Belying his crazed behaviour and features, he was dressed as befitted the first cousin to the king: blue silk shirt, velvet jacket neatly tied with a sash, dark blue pantaloons, and silk shoes with cork soles.

  The blue shape blurred and she gasped as he lunged towards a suit of armour. His manicured hands wrapped around the hilt of a sword and withdrew it from the scabbard. The metal blade glinted, and so did his wide staring eyes.

  Her stomach turned, her legs weakened. “Thand, no, please put that away!” she whispered, annoyed that fear crept into her tone.

  The man she loved turned, swung open a door and, trailing the sword with him, slid inside.

  Before she could get to it, he had bolted the door, locked himself inside.

  “Thand!” she wailed. “Please open the door!”

  “There you are!” It was a strident, wheezing voice behind her.

  Tantian cursed under her breath and swung round.

  Swooping down on her was Dori, her husband’s grandmother, followed by four trusted retainers. She was like an apparition, with her cadaverous complexion, her face lined like old shoe leather, her receding chin and sunken cheeks typical of the Qosar lineage. “Where have you been?” wheezed Nemond Dori, her thin lips cracked with age.

  She ignored the question, since it was none of the awful woman’s business. “Why is Thand in such a state?” Tantian riposted, unmindful of respect for this scheming woman who was at least 111 years old.

  “We do not know.” Dori’s colourless dewdrop eyes narrowed, scrutinising Tantian. “We tried to find you, but you were not in the palace.”

  Only because I was trying to secure my husband’s future, you old hag! Close to tears with frustration, Tantian stamped her sandaled foot. “He shouldn’t be allowed to get this bad!”

  Dori nodded, the tower of white hair wobbling, threatening to topple off her head. “You forget, he is my grandson. He is of my blood!”

  Then the noise behind the door increased. The retainers tried to open it with a bunch of keys, but to no avail. The crashing and cursing grew louder, more strained. It sounded like wood splintering.

  “Thand, darling, please open the door!”

  Dori shook her head. “Adama has gone for the witch.”

  Tantian wondered why Thand’s mother needed to go for Sister Illasa; Adama was, after all, as good as a witch herself.

  There was a strident yelp, then uncanny silence.

  The blood drained from her face. “Was that Hansa?”

  One of the retainers whispered, “It sounded like it, m’lady.”

  “Oh, ye gods, the poor creature…” She leaned against the wall, her bosom heaving under her trembling bejewelled hand.

  The noise of furniture being reduced to kindle-wood resumed, accompanied by Thand’s plaintive keening.

  ***

  A short while later, Adama moved down the passageway; her body seemed to levitate beneath the folds of her grey shift dress that hung from the shoulders with no waistline. Alongside her slithered Sister Illasa in her moccasins, dressed in mauve material wrapped about the waist and draped over the shoulder.

  Tantian wiped her eyes with the heel of her hands and offered the two witches a smile; only one was a real witch, of course, but it felt good to think of Thand’s mother in that way. “I’m so pleased you came,” she simpered to Illasa, sure that despite her words of greeting her insincerity was evident.

  “Dear child,” Dori wheezed to Adama, “have you told Sister Illasa what happened?”

  Adama nodded, her long grey pigtails jiggling on either side of her face. “Of course, mother.” Her voice was croaky, reminding Tantian of the surtian lizard’s sound of alarm; a mental image that suited Adama’s liver-spotted complexion and dewdrop eyes. “Sister Illasa will deal with this. Nobody must know about this problem.”

  “My husband isn’t a problem,” Tantian snapped. “He’s sick.”

  Thrusting out her receding chin with difficulty, Adama looked down her nose at Tantian, and then scowled. “If he is sick, then we must ensure that he is fit again very soon. When Saurosen is ousted, Thand will take the Black Sword and the crown. And nobody will stand in his way…”

  Tantian clenched her fists and her teeth, and spat, “Stop your constant scheming to get him on the benighted throne! It’s your constant pressure on him that has affected his mind!”

  “Enough!” Sister Illasa waved them away with her skinny arms, the right hand with six fingers quite prominent. “Step well back, all of you,” she said in a surprisingly sultry voice. She didn’t appear sultry, however, what with her cyanotic complexion, the brownish lentigo on her forehead above the bridge of her nose, and close-set olive-green eyes.

  They made room and Sister Illasa sat on the floor by the door. She began to sing in a strange tongue. The tone sent an icy sensation through Tantian, yet Illasa’s words seemed strangely soothing and quite hypnotic.

  Almost as soon as the singing began, the sounds from the room decreased.

  Tantian dared to hope.

  Out of the corner of her eye she noticed Adama slinking off along the passageway, mumbling about her messenger birds. Good riddance, you old bat!

  Illasa’s singing faded away, and for a brief instant Tantian was bereft. Then she heard the bolts on the door being slid back. Her throat constricted.

  The door opened.

  Nemond Thand peered out, his honey-coloured eyes fearful until they alighted on her. “Tantian, something terrible has happened.” He beckoned with a finger. Then he noticed the others. “Hello, Grandmother, Sister Illasa.” He slipped inside.

  Tantian followed him and released an involuntary groan. “Oh, Thand… why?”

  His clothing was blood-spattered, but he didn’t seem to notice or care. He gestured at the splinters that had once been a chair and a chest of drawers. “It was the Underpeople.”

  Her heart sank; now she feared that he had lost all semblance of sanity.

  His lower lip trembled as his gaze rested on the inert body of Hansa, their beloved hound. Tears streamed down his cheeks.

  She ran to the animal, knelt. The sword lay by the dog’s side, covered in blood. There was blood splashed on the floor, the walls, and the furniture. How could a mere dog have so much blood?

  “He speaks the truth,” whispered the sultry voice of Sister Illasa from the doorway. “The Underpeople have left traces; I have sensed them. They crept into the P
alace and were undetected until the hound scented them.”

  Tantian turned, her lips curling in disgust. Illasa lied, pandering to Thand’s dementia. There were no other entrances to this room. The blood was fresh, and must have drained out of poor Hansa, not some fanciful mythical creature. But she bit her tongue on a retort.

  Thand passed a hand over his face, lifted it away and stared at the blood-streaked fingers, puzzled. “Hansa attacked them – there were two. They fought. I used the sword, but I was too late, they killed…”

  “Just so,” said Sister Illasa. “The Underpeople are growing in number and boldness. It is not for me to say, but I would advocate increasing the guard.”

  “I will make it so,” Tantian said without looking at the witch.

  Thand knelt beside Tantian and together they stroked the dead hound.

  ***

  Fourth Sufin of Juvous

  Lornwater

  Dawn in the New City percolated through the overcrowded streets, where visitors and performers had lain for the night, their wagons left unattended, and scaffolding awaiting erection of the next day. And now they awoke, in twos and threes, then before long everyone was chatting and sharing a light breakfast before the day’s work of preparations for the Forbidden Carnival, as the occasion was now referred to in whispers. There was much banter and King Saurosen IV was the recipient of ribald jokes.

  Rujon Telicia, a recently wed young woman of attractive shape and eye, lived in the red canal quarter on the manderon side of the Long Causeway adjacent to the varteron gate. She woke as the sun slanted through her bedroom window’s wooden slats, and immediately sensed something was amiss. Normally, she lay languorously floating in the half-asleep, half-awake bliss, cuddling Sos, her husband, idly stroking his manly frame. Her heart gave a start. Sos wasn’t lying beside her; the smell of smalt wasn’t on the air.

  She sat up and studied the room, finding none of his discarded clothing. Her brow wrinkled as she thought back to the time she had retired, not long after sunset. As usual, she had slept soundly. But Sos’ entrance, after his shift at the smalthouse, had not disturbed and aroused her desire as was normal. Her heartbeat increased as an unnameable dread threatened to crush her.

  Then she burst out laughing. Stupid fool, she told herself. He’d changed shifts to earn extra money. He was going to work a week in the mine; at the end of the week, he said, he would return as a wagon guard and then get a bonus for working a week in the smalthouse; after that, he would get a week off. She relished that week with him, but she feared he would be so tired he’d sleep most of it! Still, he was a good worker and the extra money would be useful. Her mother had told her that living with a shift worker played havoc with your sense of time, and she’d been proven right. As usual.

  Flinging the bedclothes aside, she hugged herself briefly as a warm flush suffused her body. Then she stood and hastily dressed in her gay carnival garments for want of others.

  Her mother lived four streets away and was scrubbing the floorboards in readiness for the carnival parties. Telicia almost fell through the doorway on top of her mother. Breathless, she explained how she had become confused. “So I have a week to wait for him, you see, mother?”

  A vast flabby woman of indeterminate age and of a sensible nature, her mother said, “There is a glow about you today, daughter.”

  Telicia nodded, grinning. “I am pregnant!”

  “You felt it, truly?”

  “Yes! I thought it was an old wives’ tale, but I definitely sensed the moment.”

  Her mother hugged her. “You are blessed, my dear.”

  Telicia really did feel fortunate, for many but not all women of Floreskand sensed the actual conception; it was a distinct upsurge of all-consuming bliss about a day after intercourse; it was discovered by physician Aji-shand and became known as the Ajishand twinge. And she had experienced it the day Sos departed for his shift. She had waited this long to be sure it was not a fanciful false alarm.

  “Now, Telicia, I am due to go to the smalthouse with a special drink for your brother.”

  “Should I break the good news to Telico?”

  “No, your husband should be the first man to know. And remember when it is Sos’ turn in the smalthouse, take him this remedy. It will help protect him during his shift.”

  “Yes, mother.” Everyone knew the smaltmen couldn’t go on working continuously in that poisonous environment. A special breed of miners dug up cobalt ore from the ancient Oxor caves. Regular guarded wagons transported the ore to the three cities, and here in the smalthouse roasting eliminated the sulphur and arsenic; then the residue was fused with sand to produce the glass. Unfortunately, this process created noxious fumes, so it was decreed that shift-working of two orms every day would be the agreed safe stint. Since that decree, no fatalities had occurred, though it was generally accepted that a smaltman never lived beyond the tenth decade; a similar mortality rate existed in the mining communities. Fatalistically, they shrugged off the danger and said they were born to be smaltmen and miners and were proud of the distinction. Over the years a variety of concoctions had been formulated ostensibly to ward off the effects, but it was too soon to determine if any were really effective. Telicia’s mother was convinced the remedy she had obtained protected Telico.

  The two women stopped at the street corner opposite the smalthouse, a grey dusty two-storey building, with two stubby chimneys, no windows and tall vent pipes. Here, a statue of Arqitor, Great Lady of the Land stood, blemished only by bird-droppings; she possessed a sharp pointed nose, big sightless eyes and hair that draped like musk-flower.

  A crowd had gathered, mostly women. The iron gates were shut and an armed guard wearing the blaze of Lord Shatnerl cordoned off the entrance door to the row of cramped little offices.

  Soon, they had the full story, from a diversity of tongues. Lord Shatnerl had learned that the smaltmen were closing down production, as was normal two days before the commencement of the annual carnival. As a strong adherent of the king, and very possibly appreciating the king’s opinion of him if he permitted his employees to attend the Forbidden Carnival, Shatnerl ordered his guards to take position and declared that the smaltmen must continue working until their compatriots, the new shift, willingly stepped forward to relieve them. Should they die, he opined, it would not be Lord Shatnerl’s fault: the blame would rest firmly on the shoulders of the smaltmen’s relief shift. In open defiance and fully aware of what they were saying, the smaltmen on shift gave their response: they would rather die than subject their co-workers to a deprivation of freedom which Lord Shatnerl advocated. They would not work. The roasting house was damped down; but this action would not dispel the noxious fumes in time, and all knew this.

  A plea from the smalt gild was despatched at once to the king, appealing for clemency for the smaltmen. Could he willingly allow his subjects’ deaths to sit on his conscience?

  Saurosen’s answer was swift and unequivocal. Together with a heavily armed mounted troop of the royal guard, the royal crier upon his palfrey informed the populace surrounding the smalthouse that His Royal Highness would not tolerate any deviation from his royal edict. The deaths of any smaltmen would be no fault of his. His conscience was clear.

  As most of the crowd were women, the force of arms proved effective, though jeering and some rotten fruit were hurled at the crier and his bodyguard. One trooper was jostled off his mount, never to be seen again.

  Slowly, the horse troop wended its way to the Old City, seeing on every side, up every back street and every alley, blatant preparations for the forbidden Kcarran carnival. Fuming at the ill treatment he’d suffered, the crier determined to report in full – possibly with embellishments – the people’s behaviour and their illicit activities. Curse them all! They would rue this day.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  GILDHOUSE

  “All gilds are conspiracies against the public.”

  - Creed of the Disbelievers

  Almost all the fol
k of the New City wore their respectively coloured sekors, denoting which fane they paid homage to, whose gods and lesser gods they patronised. A certain minority didn’t hold with religion and refrained from wearing fane badges. Normally, they would be unmolested for their free thinking; it was a free city, after all. But tempers flared, and followers who believed in the “Inner God” became obstreperous.

  Because of the impasse at the smalthouse, it had been a bad day in the immediately connected sectors. But word was travelling fast on tainted tongues and now, to add more venom, word reached them at last regarding the mining disaster at Oxor.

  The new shift of miners grew anxious as whispers of the smalthouse lock-in reached them. Was it possible the mine lords were doing the same, forcing the men to remain below ground?

  ***

  None of the inns in the Open House franchise were his usual haunt, mainly because it was far beneath Baron Laan Jhuren’s station; he frequented the saloons of the Second City, when the desire took him. Still, needs must when the fickle gods drive. He had selected the Open House on the corner of Kcarran Avenue and Somarkin Way in sector sixteen, the section of the city known as the White Quarter since this was where resided many of the albino families, those migrants from Kogada where their affliction was commonplace. His white hair and beard would not stand out so much here, Jhuren reasoned. He sat in the shadows, in a corner, with four nobles. A single stout almost-spent candle illuminated the scarred wood table and the meagre fare: seared chops, baked potatoes and ale.

  Like him, his companions had dressed down for this clandestine meeting. There was nowhere secure within the palace walls to talk. Saurosen and his spies seemed to be everywhere. It was a risk, even gathering here, but sometimes risks had to be taken.

  He studied the four and wondered how he would win their support. Ban-so, a rich slaver, would go with whichever side he considered would further his business; Pelnoo was a pragmatic financier who feared that Saurosen was bleeding the city dry with his excesses; Qued, a recently elevated noble and ex-soldier, would bear watching, as he owed his new status to Saurosen, yet he was indebted to the house of Laan for the recommendation; and Xarop, one of the oldest nobles in the city, was anxious to find security for his recently widowed daughter, Zimera. He doubted if they would speak in one voice. But they were the most malleable nobles within reach.