When consciousness returned it was accompanied by a pounding at the back of the head that would not go away. Wincing, Ehomba fought to keep his eyes open. With every effort his vision grew a little clearer, a little sharper. That did not mean he much liked what he saw.
The dining room with its fine table settings and liveried servants was gone. The travelers had been moved to some kind of reception room, larger but more sparsely furnished. The paintings on the walls were not of reassuring domestic scenes but instead depicted a procession of Lacondan counts and their consorts. There were also landscapes and images of pastoral life, well rendered and patriotically infused. Exquisite tropical fish, those inexplicable living ornaments of Laconda, drifted and swam through the air of the reception hall. Lining the walls, alert and heavily armed blue-clad soldiers stood like silent sculptures.
At one end of the room a double throne of becoming modesty rested on a raised dais. Heavily embroidered banners formed a suitably impressive backdrop to the royal seat while providing some of the opulent trappings of office the chairs themselves lacked. One seat was empty, the other held a brooding Bewaryn Beckwith. Standing next to him was a squat, pug shape from whose thick lips protruding a lightly smoking cigar. No look of triumph scored the merchant’s round face. Satisfaction, perhaps. With bin Grue it was only business as usual.
When he noticed the herdsman staring at him, he grunted around the tobacco. “Nobody gets the best of Haramos bin Grue. You should’ve let me have the cat.”
Alongside the herdsman Simna ibn Sind was coming slowly awake. As he returned to the world of cognizance, he became aware of the strong cords binding his arms behind his back.
“Hoy, what’s this?” Blinking, he focused not on the pensive nobleman but on the stubby shape standing next to him. “It’s the pig-man!” Futilely, he began to fight against his fetters. “Let me free for a minute. No, half a minute! You don’t even have to give me a sword!”
While his friend raged, Ehomba saw that a metal net now secured the glowering black litah behind him. A second similar mesh had been used to bind up Hunkapa Aub while he slept. Whatever drug had been slipped into their wine had done its work efficiently and with admirable subtlety. No wonder the Count’s servants had insisted that Ahlitah and Hunkapa partake of the specially treated libation.
Their gear lay piled nearby, his pack and weapons atop Simna’s. These might as well have been left on the other side of the Hrugars. He was bound so tightly he could barely move his fingers, let alone his arms and legs. No doubt bin Grue had made sure of that. But he was not sorry for himself. He had faced death many times before. His only regret was that he would not be able to tell Mirhanja and the children good-bye, and that they would never know what had happened to him. Also, it was more than a little discouraging to realize that they were going to die for a lie.
If there was anything more depressing than his own situation, it was the pitiful plight of Hunkapa Aub. The big, easygoing beast was sitting hunched over and silent with his head hung down toward his feet, exactly as Ehomba had first seen him penned back in Netherbrae. After all he had been through, and after having his freedom restored, he was once again destined for life in a cage, to be tormented and jeered at by thoughtless, faceless, uncaring humans. Ehomba was glad he could see only the solid, imposing back and not the creature’s countenance.
“What have you to say before I pronounce sentence?”
Turning away from his friends and ignoring Simna’s unbounded ranting, Ehomba tried to meet Count Bewaryn Beckwith’s stare with as much sincere probity as he could muster. “The individual standing next to you does not deserve to share your presence. He is Haramos bin Grue, a false merchant of Lybondai.”
“I know who he is,” the Count replied curtly. With one hand he brushed aside a dozen amethyst anthias who were swimming across his line of vision. Fins twitching, they skittered silently out of his way. “He came all the way from the far south to warn me of your coming, and to tell me the truth of what happened to my son.”
“The truth is he knows only what I told his employee, an old man with no more scruples than himself.” Ehomba tried to shift his position and found that he could move his backside and bound legs in concert, but had no chance of standing up. Speaking from a seated position weakened his words, he knew, if only psychologically. “He has twisted and distorted it for his own ends. Every time he opens his mouth, he feeds you bullshit.”
“Not only a murderer and a liar, but coarse.” Using only his lips, bin Grue manipulated the smoking cigar from one side of his mouth to the other.
“Hear my friend, great Count!” Evincing impressive reserves of energy, Simna continued to fight futilely with the ropes that bound him even as he spoke. “He tells the truth. And if you don’t release us, doom will befall you. My friend is a great and powerful wizard!”
A hand slowly massaging one temple, Beckwith regarded the herdsman coldly. “Is that so? He looks like a common assassin to me, one who can do nothing without stealth and a knife to slip into some innocent’s back. But I am willing to be convinced.” Eyes blazing, he leaned forward on the throne. “Your friend says you are a powerful magician, southerner. Prove his words. Free yourself.” Against the walls, a number of the vigilant soldiers shifted uneasily.
“I am no assassin,” Ehomba replied. “Hymneth the Possessed is the murderer of your son.”
“A wizard.” With a blunt, humorless laugh, Beckwith sat back on his throne.
Simna stopped struggling against his bonds long enough to lean to his left and whisper to his companion. “Come on, Etjole. This be no time for reticence. Show them what you can do. Reveal your powers to them!”
The herdsman nodded in the direction of their collected kit. “What small powers I may access lie in the bottom of my pack, Simna, which I cannot reach. I am sorry. Truly I am.”
“Well then, remonstrate with this fool! He’s so blinded by the loss of his son that he can’t think straight. That’s when slime like bin Grue can do their work.”
“I will try.” Redirecting his words to the dais, he spoke clearly and with the confidence of one who speaks the truth. “Think a moment before condemning us, noble Beckwith. If I were truly your son’s killer, why would I come all this way and present myself to your court? What possible reason could I have for undertaking such a long and dangerous journey?”
Beckwith replied without hesitation. “To claim the treasure, of course.” He glanced to his right. “Now it will go, as it rightfully should, to my new friend here.”
For the first time, Haramos bin Grue smiled. And why not? Not only was he going to reclaim the black litah and acquire an additional attraction in the form of the disconsolate Hunkapa Aub, there was apparently a good deal more at stake.
“I knew it!” Simna burst out. He glared murderously at his tall friend. “There was treasure all along! You’ve been lying to me—but I never believed you, you sanctimonious southern scion of a promiscuous porker!”
Honestly baffled, Ehomba gaped at his friend. “Simna, I do not know what you are talking about.” He nodded as best he was able in Beckwith’s direction. “I do not know what he is talking about.”
“But I do know—now! At last I understand. Oh, you were so subtle, you were, so adept at parrying my questions about ‘treasure.’” Turning sharply away from the herdsman, Simna ibn Sind gazed expectantly at the throne. “There’s a reward, isn’t there? For information about your son. That’s the treasure!”
A wary Bewaryn Beckwith nodded slowly. “There has been for months. Knowledge of it was spread far and wide in hopes of securing some information as to Tarin’s whereabouts. This good merchant earns it by dint of the invaluable information he has brought me. I am only thankful that he arrived in time to tell me the truth of how things really are, and to inform me of your nefarious intentions.” His attention shifted back to Ehomba. “It is clear you not only murdered my son, but intended to claim the reward for bringing us the news of his death. Simple man that I am, I cannot conceive of such incredible arrogance.”
“Hoy, I can, noble sir!” Not only was an obviously outraged Simna not finished, he appeared to be just warming up. “For weeks I have been attending to this mumbling, stone-faced charlatan, seeing to his needs, waiting upon his desires, helping to protect him from all manner of difficulties and dangers. I did this of my own free will because in my heart I knew he was after treasure. I could smell it in his words, sense it in the way he stared at the far horizons. And, humbly avaricious fellow that I am, I wanted a piece of that treasure for myself. That was all I was interested in: I admit it. Condemn me for my confession if you will, but give me credit at least for my honesty. I am ashamed to admit that it never bothered me that he killed the man who inspired him to come all this way. Your son, noble sir.”
Ehomba’s jaw dropped in utter disbelief. “Simna!”
The swordsman sneered at him, “‘Simna’? What is this use of my name to express outrage? Am I now reduced to nothing more than a surprised expletive? ‘Simna’ yourself, you fakir, you champion of lies, you user of honest men. You fooled everyone, even the cat, but you can’t fool me any longer!” Straining against the ropes that enveloped him, he struggled to bow in the direction of the throne. It required considerable flexibility and effort.
“Sire, Count Beckwith, I abjure this deceptive and conniving villain now and for all time! I was wrong to think the treasure that I knew he sought could be come by honestly, but you must see, you have to see, that I could not have suspected otherwise. He is a master of deviousness, which he cleverly masks with a studied attitude of simple affability. Free me, give me back my life, and I will tell you everything! I see now that there never was any treasure in this for me, fool that I was.”
Beckwith stared hard at the bound swordsman, the fingers of one hand tap-tapping against the arm of the throne. “Why should I let you go? You have nothing to give me.” He nodded in the merchant’s direction. “This good gentleman has already told me everything.”
“Impossible, sire! He can only have told you what his ancient employee told him. Only I have traveled in this prevaricator’s misbegotten company since near the very start of his journey. Only I have been privy to all of his plans and intentions.” He lowered his head and his voice. “Besides the murderer himself, only I know the most intimate details of your son’s death.”
To his credit, bin Grue’s expression never changed. “He’s lying,” the merchant avowed brusquely.
“Lying?” Bewaryn Beckwith eyed the foreign trader thoughtfully. “Lying about what? Are you saying that perhaps this stranger was not responsible for the death of my son?”
“No, sire, of course not. We both know better than that.” Ehomba thought bin Grue might have been starting to sweat a little, but he could not be sure. Like the rest of Laconda, it was hot and humid in the reception chamber.
“Then what could he be lying about?” the Count pressed him. “Not his own participation in my son’s murder. You told me yourself it was carried out by the tall southerner alone.”
“That’s true, sire, but—I know a little of this talkative person, and I know that he is not to be trusted.”
“I have no intention of trusting him, but if he knows more of my son’s death than you, he deserves at least to be heard.” Leaning forward, he glared down at the semisupine swordsman. “Speak then, vagrant, and if what you say satisfies me, I may decide to spare your inconsequential life.”
Simna shifted awkwardly on the floor. “Your indulgence, sire, but the pain in my arms and legs from these ropes is severe, and distracts my thoughts.”
Beckwith sat back in his seat and waved indifferently. “Oh very well—cut him loose.”
“Sire,” bin Grue protested as two burly soldiers stepped forward to release the swordsman from his bonds, “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“What, are you afraid of him, Haramos? I thought it was the assassin who claimed to be a sorcerer.”
“No, sire, I’m not afraid of him.” The merchant was watching the relieved Simna intently. “I just don’t trust him. I don’t trust any of them.”
“You don’t have to trust them, my friend. The hairy brute and the giant cat are well and truly shackled, and these troops you see here are my household guard, the pride of Laconda North.” He indicated Simna who, freed from the heavy ropes, was gratefully rubbing circulation back into his wrists and legs. “He is but one man, and not a very big one at that. Calm yourself. Why, despite the differences in our ages I think I could take him in a fair fight myself.”
“I suspect that you could, sire.” The liberated swordsman was eager to please.
“Flattery is for wiping asses, vagrant, and mine is clean. Now—my son’s passing? How did happen? Spare no detail, no matter how repellent.”
After a glance at the two brawny guards who flanked him on either side, Simna began. It was an elaborate tale, rich with intrigue and deception. Even the pair of sentinels were drawn into the story, though they never let down their guard. Only bin Grue, who knew the real truth, was not taken in. Unable to object more strenuously without bringing suspicion on himself, he could only watch and wonder at the swordsman’s exhibition. From the standpoint of pure theater, the tough-minded merchant had to admit, it was quite a performance.
As for Ehomba, he could only sit in silence and wonder at the swordsman’s motivations. While he could understand the opportunistic Simna’s desire to employ every means at his disposal to try to save himself, the herdsman would have preferred it did not involve digging a deeper grave for the sole local representative of the Naumkib, who were not present to speak in their own defense.
Simna wove more and more detail into his story, one moment gazing imploringly heavenward, the next pointing a trembling arm in Ehomba’s direction. Walking up behind the herdsman, he began beating him about the head and shoulders as he spoke, belaboring the bound southerner with insults and accusations as well as solid, unrelenting blows. Beckwith watched expressionlessly while bin Grue gnawed nervously at his cigar and wondered what the swordsman was going to do for a big finish.
It came soon enough. As he returned to stand between the two heavyset guards, Simna’s voice rose to a shout, a climax of indignation and outrage. “Look at him, sitting there! Do you see any remorse written on his face? Do you see any hint, any suggestion of apologia for what he’s done? No! That’s how he always is. Stone-faced, devoid of expression, unchanging whether picking a man’s mind or taking his life. He deserves to die! I would kill him myself for what he’s done to me, but I am unarmed.” Reaching back, he gave the slightly nearer of the two guards a strong shove in the herdsman’s direction.
“Go on, get it done, execute him now! I want to see his blood run! I deserve to see it!” When the guard hesitated, Simna pushed the other one forward, shoving insistently. “Show me his head rolling on the floor.”
“Simna ibn Sind, you are a faithless and unprincipled man!” Belying the swordsman’s accusations, Ehomba’s face contorted in a rictus of anger and betrayal. “You will die a lonely and miserable death that fully reflects your worthless life!”
“Probably,” the swordsman retorted, “but not just yet.” Whereupon he bolted, quick as a cobra, in the opposite direction. Both guards turned and grabbed for him, but having been shoved several steps forward, the wily Simna had put them just out of reach.
Half-somnolent troops instantly scrambled to block the nearest exits. Others rushed to protect the Count. Startled by all the sudden activity, decorative drifting fish darted confusedly to and fro. Another dozen soldiers rushed the agile swordsman. They lowered or drew their own weapons as the frantic Simna scrabbled madly at his and Ehomba’s pile of personal belongings. His fingers wrapping around a sword hilt, he pulled it free and threw it not at the grim-faced, oncoming soldiers, but toward his companion.
“Hoy, bruther! Bring down a piece of the sky on this ungrateful place! Conjure forth the wind that rushes between the stars and blow these knaves through their precious walls! Litter the floor with their skeletons as the star wind tears the flesh from their bones!”
Slipping free of the ropes that had restrained him, which Simna’s supple fingers had astutely undone in between beating the herdsman madly about the head and body, Ehomba rose in time to catch the tumbling sword by its haft. There was only one problem with the swordsman’s bold and bloodthirsty admonitions.
It was the wrong sword.
Instead of the sharp blade fashioned of gray sky metal, in his haste and confusion Simna had snatched up the herdsman’s other sword, the one made of bone lined with serrated, triangular sharks’ teeth. A fearsome and efficacious weapon to be sure, but not one that could by any stretch of anyone’s imagination bring down so much as an errant rain cloud. It was a thing of the sea, not of the sky.
Having taken up his own sword subsequent to flinging the weapon to Ehomba, the rueful swordsman realized his mistake. “Hoy, I’m sorry, bruther.” Sword held in both hands, he was backing away from the advancing semicircle of soldiers. A sword was not of much use against pikes, but he was determined to sell his life as dearly as possible. If naught else, at least he would go down with a weapon in his hand and no shackles on his wrists and ankles. They would die like men and not like mad dogs.
“Nothing to be sorry for, friend Simna.” Ehomba held the tooth-lined sword high overhead, its sharpened tip pointed at the tense but unconcerned soldiers. “There are fish everywhere in this place, so what better weapon to fight with than one that owes its edge to the sea?”
“Kill them!” It was the curt voice of Haramos bin Grue, declaiming from behind a line of blue-coated troops. “Kill them now, before he ... !”
Hidden on his throne, Bewaryn Beckwith could be heard responding querulously, and for the first time, with a hint of suspicion in his voice. “Before he—what, Haramos?”
It was a question Simna ibn Sind was asking silently. Nearby, Ahlitah was awake and roaring, adding to the sense of incipient chaos. Emerging from his gloom, Hunkapa Aub had straightened and was shaking the metal mesh of his netting with terrifying violence.
A blue aurora had enveloped the blade of the sea-bone sword. It was dark as the deep ocean, tinged with green, and smelled of salt. At the sight of it the advancing soldiers halted momentarily. From the dais, their liege’s voice urged them on.
“What are you waiting for?” Bewaryn Beckwith bellowed. “They are only two and you are many. Take them! Alive if possible—otherwise if not.”
One of the two thickly muscled guards who had been duped by Simna stepped forward, holding his heavy sword threateningly out in front of him. His voice was that of reason, not anger.
“This is senseless. Why disgrace yourselves by spilling blood inside the palace? You should meet your fate with dignity.” Holding his blade at the ready, he extended his other hand. “Give up your weapons.”
“Look!” one of the men behind him shouted. An uncomfortable susurration rippled through the contracting circle of soldiers.
Something was emerging from the point of the herdsman’s sword. Gray on top, white on the bottom, it swelled massively as it expanded away from the bone. It looked like a giant bicolored drop of milk oozing out of nothingness parallel to the floor. As it continued to increase in size it began to grow individual features, like a closed flower sprouting petals. And it just kept getting bigger and bigger.
The ornamental floating fish in the reception hall identified it before any of the soldiers. They vanished through open doors as if propelled by lightning and not fins, evaporating streaks of yellow and orange, red and gold. In one case they literally flew through a squad of blue-clad reinforcements hurrying to the chamber. It was as if they had not fled, but vaporized.
The gray-white mass grew fins of its own, and a great, sickle-like tail. A pair of black eyes manifested themselves. They were jet black and without visible pupils. All of these details were ignored by those in the room as they focused on a single predominant feature: the mouth.
It was enormous, capable of swallowing a person in a single swallow. Multiple rows of gleaming white, triangular teeth lined the interior of that imposing cavity. Their edges were serrated on both sides of the sharp point, like steak knives. The largest was more than three inches long. It was a peerless mouth, unlike anything else in all the undersea kingdom. When viewed from straight on, jaws and teeth combined to form a uniquely terrifying smile.
The great white shark broke free of the tip of the bone sword and drifted toward the assembled soldiers. Several broke and ran, but the rest bravely held their ground, their long pikes extended. A second gray-white teardrop shape was beginning to emerge from the weapon. If anything, it promised to be larger than its predecessor.
One of the soldiers thrust his pike at the looming predator. Extending its jaws beyond its lips, the great white ate it. Left holding a length of useless wood, the soldier sensibly threw it away, turned, and sprinted for the nearest door.
“Hold your ground!” Bewaryn Beckwith commanded from the vicinity of his throne. “Fight back! They are only fish, like the ones you see every day on the streets of the city.”
The Count of Laconda North was half right. They were only fish, but they were most assuredly not like the ones the soldiers saw every day. They were not decorative, they were not inoffensive, and they were hungry. And now there were three of them, with a fourth on the way as the fecund sword gave birth yet again.
To their credit, the soldiers responded to the appeal of their liege. They tried to encircle two of the sharks and attack with their long pikes. Several thrusts struck home, and droplets of red shark blood spilled in slow motion to the floor. But the wounds only enraged the sharks. With their great curved tails propelling them explosively through the air, they snapped at whatever happened to come within reach, be it pike, soldier, or unfortunate furniture.
One great white the soldiers probably could have contained. Two and then three forced them into a holding action. When the sixth emerged full grown from Ehomba’s sword, the reception hall dissolved into general blood and chaos.
Soldiers broke and fled, pursued by unrelenting carnivorous torpedoes. The fortunate escaped down corridors of panic while their slower, less agile comrades were actively dismembered. It was not long before limbs littered the floor and the fine furnishings and papered walls were splashed with crimson. Convoyed by a close-packed detachment of desperate soldiers, Bewaryn Beckwith, Count of Laconda North, escaped through a secret bolt-hole located behind the throne dais. Many members of his escort were not as lucky.
As for Haramos bin Grue, he attempted to flee along with the Count, only to find himself shoved roughly back into the bloody pandemonium that had enveloped the hall. As his guard kept them separated, Beckwith had just enough time to shout a passing farewell before ducking to safety.
“Not a sorcerer, Haramos? You lied to me about that. Could it be that you lied also about how my son died?”
“No, sire—believe me, I told the truth!” Despite the fact that he was unarmed save for a pair of small concealed knives, the merchant resisted the soldiers. But it was hard to fight with someone when there was a foot of sharp blade and six feet of wooden shaft between you and your opponent. Such was the advantage of the steel-tipped pike.
“That is the murderer, down there! That uncouth, uncivilized southerner. And he is no sorcerer, by his own word! Though I admit to being fooled by the sorceral devices he carries with him.”
“You are right about one thing.” Beckwith paused as he crouched to pass beneath the low overhang of the escape portal. His guard fought to keep a curious great white away from their Count. “Someone here is being fooled. I wish I had the time to sort it out.” He hurried into the concealed passageway. One by one, his soldiers tried to follow him. Many succeeded. Others lost limbs and, in a couple of cases, their heads to the rampaging shark.
Falling back, bin Grue pressed himself against the wall and began to make his way toward the nearest exit, edging steadily away from the royal dais. Before him was being played out an unparalleled spectacle of remorseless carnage. He had nearly reached the door when he made the mistake of bolting. The rapid movement caught the attention of one of the marauding great whites. When he turned, the merchant did not scream in fear but instead cursed violently. His end, therefore, was in keeping with his nature all his life, a reflection of internal toughness and perpetual ire. It made no difference to the shark, which bit him in half.
Out on the floor of the reception hall there were now eight great whites circling slowly in search of additional prey. The once grand chamber had taken on the aspect of an abattoir, with blood, guts, and body parts scattered everywhere. The last live soldier had fled.
Sloshing through the shallow lake of unwillingly vented bodily fluids, Ehomba advanced on his still imprisoned friends. Simna followed, hugging as close to his tall friend as possible without actually slipping into his clothing. He had seen how fast the floating sharks could move and had no intention of separating himself from their procreator even for an instant. Soulless black eyes tracked his movements, but the sharks did not attack. A number had settled to the floor and were feeding, gulping down whole chunks of soldier, uniform and all.
“You are a very canny man.” With a free hand the herdsman rubbed his sore face and shoulders. “As soon as the opportunity presents itself, I intend to pay you back for your canniness.”
“Hoy, bruther, I had to make it look real, didn’t I? I needed to distract them from what I was doing behind your back. Any sleight of hand needs a good diversion to be effective.” He grinned. “I was beginning to wonder if you’d ever pick up on what I was trying to do.”
“I admit you had me concerned at first. What finally revealed your true intentions was the degree of your pleading. I think I understand you well enough to know that you would go down fighting before you would grovel.”
“Depends on the circumstances,” the swordsman replied without hesitation. “If the need arose, I could grovel with the best of them.” He nodded in the direction of the throne. “But not because of a lie, and never in front of a fat toad like bin Grue.” His tone was harsh. “I saw him go down. He won’t be putting anybody in a cage ever again.”
Ehomba replied somberly. “Not all the methods a man perfects to protect himself work all the time. That is one thing about sharks: They cannot be reasoned with, distracted, or bribed. Stay close to me.”
The swordsman did not have to be reminded. The presence of twenty tons or so of floating, fast-moving great white rendered the immediate surroundings decidedly inhospitable.
“Let me guess. You’re not working any magic whatsoever. You have no idea how this is happening. You’re just making use of the enchanted sword fashioned for you by the village smithy Okidoki.”
“Otjihanja,” Ehomba corrected him patiently. “That is a silly notion, Simna. A smithy works only with metals.” He hefted the tooth-lined bone shaft. “This sword was made by old Pembarudu, who is a master of fishing. It took him a long time to gather all the teeth from the shore and mount them together on the bone. It is whalebone, of course. A shark has no bones. It is one of the reasons they make such good eating.”
Keeping low, Simna ibn Sind made hushing motions with one hand. “Don’t speak of such things, Etjole. One of these finny monsters might overhear and get the wrong idea.”
The herdsman smiled. “Simna, are you afraid?”
“By Ghogost’s gums, you bet I’m afraid, bruther! Any man confronted by such sights who did say he was not would be a liar of bin Grue’s class. I’m afraid whenever you pick up a weapon, and I’m afraid whenever you pull some innocent little article out of that pack of yours. Traveling with you, I have learned many things. When to be afraid is one of them.” Still smiling, but grimly, he gazed evenly up at his tall companion. “You’re not a man to inspire fear, Etjole, but your baggage—that’s another matter.”
Ehomba did his best to reassure him. “So long as I hold the sword, I command its progeny. See ...”
Lowering the weapon, he touched the tip to the metal netting in which Ahlitah was imprisoned. Immediately, the nearest shark turned and swam toward it. Snarling, the black cat backed as far away as it could from jaws that were even more massive and powerful than its own.
With a snap, the great white took a mouthful of mesh. Thrashing its head from side to side, it used its teeth like saws. When it backfinned and drew away, it left behind a hole in the net large enough for the litah to push through.
Under Ehomba’s direction, two sharks performed a similar favor for the fourth member of their party. Expanding the resultant gap with one shove of his mighty arms, Hunkapa Aub emerged to stand alongside his friends.
“Big fish, bad bite.”
Simna nodded. “I would say, rather: bad fish, big bite—but the end is the same.” Looking around, he surveyed their tormented surroundings. The reception hall had been the scene of solemn slaughter. “Let’s pick up our gear and get out of here. I’ve had about enough of Laconda—north, south, or any other direction.”
“Soldiers chase?” Hunkapa wondered sensibly as they cautiously exited the room.
“I do not think so.” Sea-bone sword held out in front of him, Ehomba led the way. Forming two lines of four each, the great whites fell into place on either side of the travelers.
Their measured departure from the lowlands of Laconda created a stir among the populace that lay the groundwork for stories for decades to come. As was common in such matters, with each retelling the participants expanded in size and ferocity. Ehomba became the malignant warlock of the sea, come to wreak havoc among the gentle floating fishes of Laconda. Simna ibn Sind was his gnomic apprentice, wielding a sword impossibly larger than himself. Hunkapa Aub was a giant with burning eyes and long fangs that dripped olive green ichor, while the black litah was a streak of hell-smoke that burned everything it touched.
As for the escort of flying great whites, they were magnified in the storytellers’ imaginations until they had become as big as whales, with teeth like fence posts and the temperaments of demons incarnate—as if the reality were not frightening and impressive enough.
Domestic fish scattered like arrows at the approach of the travelers and their silent escort. Unwarned citizens dove for the nearest cover or hastily shuttered windows and barred doors. More than size or teeth, empty black eyes, or swaying tails, the one thing those who observed the passage of the remarkable procession never forgot were the frightful frozen grins that scored the inhuman faces of the great whites.
No one followed them and, needless to say, no one tried to stop them. By the time they reached the northwestern periphery of Laconda North, the border guards, having been informed of what was making its inexorable way in their direction, had long since decided to take early vacation. Marching across the modest, well-made bridge that delineated the frontier, the travelers found themselves in the jumble of lowland forest known as the Yesnaby Hills.
There Ehomba turned and stood alone, eyes shut tight, the sea-bone sword held vertically before him. As Simna and the others looked on, one by one the great whites swam slowly through the humid air to return whence they had come. The sword sucked them back down as if they were minnows disappearing into a bucket.
When the last tail had finned its way out of existence, Ehomba slipped the sword into the empty scabbard on his back and turned to resume their journey. A strong hand reached out to stop him.
“A moment if you please, long bruther.”
Ehomba looked down at his friend. “Is something the matter, Simna?” The herdsman looked back in the direction of the deserted border post and the Laconda lowlands. “You are not worried about the Count sending his soldiers to chase us down?”
“Not hardly,” the swordsman replied. “I think they’re smarter than that. What I’m beginning to wonder is if I am.”
“I do not follow your meaning, my friend.” Nearby, Hunkapa Aub and Ahlitah were exploring a small cave.
“When you found out where we were, you decided to inform this Beckwith of his son’s fate. The result is that he thinks you killed his heir, and that if he is given another chance, he’ll kill you.”
“I do not think that is the case. The more time he has to ponder what transpired, the more I believe he will come to question the truth of what bin Grue told him.”
“Could be, but after what you did to his court he’s still not exactly going to be ready to greet you with open arms if you come back this way. What I’m trying to say, Etjole, is that you don’t owe anything to a man who wants you dead. So we can concentrate on finding the real treasure and forget all this nonsense about returning some rarefied blue-blooded doxy to her family.”
“Not so,” Ehomba insisted. At these words, the swordsman’s expression fell. “The Visioness Themaryl, whose safe return home I promised Tarin Beckwith to try my best to effect, is a scion of Laconda. Not Laconda North. She is of a noble family other than the Beckwiths. Therefore, whatever they may think of me, now or in the future, it does not affect my pledge.” Smiling apologetically, he turned and resumed course on a northwesterly heading. After uttering a few choice words to no one in particular, Simna moved to join him. The two hirsute members of the group hurried to catch up.
“I guess you’re right, bruther. You’re no sorcerer. You just have learned friends and relations who give you useful things. So you have those to make use of, and the benefit of remarkable coincidence.”
“Coincidence?” Ehomba responded absently. At the moment, his attention was devoted to choosing the best route through the hills ahead.
“Hoy. We find ourselves in a country where the fish swim through the air. Not knowing the properties of your other weapon, when I break free I automatically reach for the magical blade whose attributes I am familiar with: the sky-metal sword. But instead I grab the weapon that, it turns out, can give birth to the most monstrous and terrible fish in the sea.” Crowding his friend, he tried hard to make the taller man meet his eyes. “Coincidence.”
Ehomba shrugged, more to show that he was listening than to evince any especial interest in what his friend was saying. “I could have made use of the sky-metal sword. Or this.” Lifting the walking stick-spear off the ground, he shook it slightly. A distant, primeval roar whispered momentarily through the otherwise still air.
“So you could,” Simna agreed. “But would they have been as appropriate? The spear would have summoned a demon too large for the room in which we were imprisoned. The sky-metal sword might have brought down the walls and ceiling on top of us.”
Now Ehomba looked over at his companion. “Then why did you want me to use it?”
“Because we would have had a better chance of surviving the smashed rumble of a palace than a certain knife in the neck. Of course, once I threw you the sea-bone sword everything worked out for the best.”
“I did not know you were going to fool your guards long enough to grab it and throw it to me,” the herdsman responded.
“Didn’t you?” Simna stared hard, hard at his tall, enigmatic friend. “I often find myself wondering, Etjole, just how much you do know and if this unbounded insistence on an unnatural fondness for livestock is nothing more than a pose to disguise some other, grander self.”
Ehomba shook his head slowly, sadly. “I can see, after all that we have been through together, friend Simna, how such sentiments could trouble your thoughts. Be assured yet again that I am Etjole Ehomba, a humble herdsman of the Naumkib.” Raising his free hand, he pointed to a nearby tree heavy with unexpected blossoms. “Look at the colors. I have never seen anything like that before. Is it not more like a giant flower than a tree?”
Hoy, you’re a shepherd for sure, mused Simna ibn Sind even as he responded to his friend’s timely floral observation. In the course of their long journeying together, Ehomba had talked incessantly of cattle and sheep until on more than one occasion the swordsman had been ready to scream. A shepherd and a—what had the southerner called it?—an eromakasi, an itinerant eater of darkness. The question that would not leave the swordsman’s mind, however, was, What else exactly, if anything, was Etjole Ehomba?