Jedit

Chapter 5

'Johan! Uh, I mean, milord! You're-'

'Alive, yes,' said Johan dryly. 'Let us in, quick.'

Flustered, the woman fell back from the door. Johan told Jedit to remain outside, then glided into the tiny house.

The woman's voice was a low contralto, husky from breathing incense smoke. Shifting blue clouds threatened to smother a visitor. Johan glanced about. A baby dozed with tiny snores in a cradle. The house had only one room, too small to hide anyone else. The mage bolted the door and sat on the only stool at a rickety table.

'Milord Johan, we thought you'd vanished, swallowed up by the desert.'

The witch had the underfed look of a girl, though her mahogany skin was laced with fine wrinkles. Her black hair was raked back in even rows. She wore only a brown felt vest laced across her small bosom and baggy trousers of wrinkled silk. Her eyes were outlined in kohl, and her long nails were red as if dipped in blood. She was clearly nervous confronting her master, for she'd served as one of Johan's spies before the invasion.

'I did vanish, but I've returned,' said Johan enigmatically. 'I need your skills. Recall you your lessons?'

Back straight, the slim woman said, 'Of course. What do you require?'

Johan told her.

The witch gazed at the door with dark-rimmed eyes. 'That would be… very costly. I'd have to quit Palmyra for good. Very costly indeed.'

'In gold or magic?' Johan dug in his many pockets, sifting items with his nimble fingers. He hadn't planned for expenses, having hatched this latest plot on the spot. Irritated at mundane concerns, he dumped trinkets on a tiny table. 'This charming crystal disguises guile when rubbed against the forehead. This claw is a petra sphinx's. This psionic whistle will drive men mad as long as you blow it… Gold coins here. Electrum.'

He stopped. The witch's eyes were wide in their black circles. Panting, she swept the items and coins into a velvet sack. 'T'will do. Bring in the brute.'

Stooping under roof beams, still in his barbarian guise, Jedit plunked on the three-legged stool that threatened to shatter under his weight and gazed curiously around. The witch lit new sticks of incense until smoke billowed in lazy curls. She walked around the false barbarian as if considering how to cut his hair. Gingerly she touched Jedit's ear, chin, and nose with a red-nailed finger. The foreigner watched crosseyed.

The witch frowned. 'This is no barbarian.'

Johan scowled. To ensorcell someone not in their true skin could make magics conflict, muddying spells like mixing two colors of paint. Too, the witch must wonder why, if Johan were a mage, he didn't enchant the victim himself.

Johan snarled, 'It won't matter. Earn your pay.' — The witch shrugged but arched an eyebrow in warning.

Opening a small metal box, the witch signaled Jedit to hold out both palms. The disguised tiger did, but asked, 'Why are we here?'

'Kismet.' The witch draped across both huge brown palms a long white veil. 'Do you know the word?'

'No.' Jedit began to toy with the dangling veil.

'Be still. Kismet is an old word, one of the oldest in our language. It means fate.' The witch tugged the veil from Jedit's hands, then laid it on again. Jedit's nose wrinkled in confusion. She said, 'Do you believe in fate?'

'How so?' asked Jedit. 'Do you mean, how our fates are engraved beforehand? Scratched in bark before our birth, our every deed?'

'That's kismet.' The witch tugged the veil away, then draped it again over Jedit's palms. As she flicked it away, the false barbarian tried to catch it but missed. The veil seemed diaphanous as incense smoke. The more Jedit stared, the more it shifted.

The witch crooned, 'In large, our fates are cast in stone when we first draw breath, and nothing can alter the plan. But in small, we can seize control by our actions. A strapping man like you, so handsome and generous, could surely rule himself. Kismet lets us do that.'

Johan watched a long while as the woman talked, cooing, flattering, running rings around logic. With every 'Kismet' she flicked the veil away. Jedit tried to catch it in vain. He couldn't take his eyes off the cloth but watched it glassy eyed. The witch talked on and on.

'One way to take control is to remove despots who tax us, who rule our lives, who command us willy-nilly. Strong and clever, you could smite the rulers of Palmyra and become a hero. Do you know our rulers? No? Your friend can finger them. One's a strumpet with unruly hair and the manners of a gutter rat, Adira Strongheart. The other is an old goat, a cruel man, Hazezon Tamar. Could you command fate, good sir? Could you embrace kismet and kill those two for the good of all?'

'Yes.' Jedit Ojanen stared at nothing. 'Easily.'

'Good.' Raising the veil before Jedit's eyes, the witch shimmied it like a lure before a trout. Gently she steered Jedit toward the door. Ready, Johan guided the tiger into the frosty darkness before dawn. As Johan slunk after the mesmerized Jedit, the witch whispered, 'Fret not, milord. I'll tell no one of your return.'

'I'm sure you won't.' Johan actually smiled, a chilling sight. From a pocket he gave the witch a small lump of coal. 'This will buy your silence.'

The witch looked indignant but accepted the fragment, so polished it might have been a black jewel. Gently she closed the door and turned to check on her baby.

Jedit and Johan turned a corner of the crooked street when the witch's house exploded with fire. Flames shot from the windows and smoke hole. Yellow hell outlined the door until it charred and crumbled. Neighbors came stumbling and shouting in their nightshirts and blankets but couldn't approach the tiny house for the fearsome heat.

Jedit noticed nothing.

'You're wasting wind, Haz!' snapped Adira Strongheart. 'And my time! Your honeyed words might make fat-bottomed merchants roll over and drool, but my people think for themselves, and we've had enough of Brycer bellyaching! So haul anchor and shove off!'

'Sweetheart.' Hazezon Tamar tried patience and reason, knowing both were useless. He'd resolved not to shout. 'This is your famous shortsightedness. Just because Johan's vanished into the desert doesn't mean he's dead, any more than a smooth sea portends no storms. All I'm asking is for you to lend me a score of your cutthroats to scour the eastern reaches for sign of the plagued tyrant.'

'Don't call me sweetheart, Haz.' Adira juggled a stoneware mug ominously. 'Or I'll kick your plums so far past your liver your palace eunuchs will call you sister.'

'Here we go,' said Badger to the air.

'Here we go what?' asked Murdoch, the young soldier bested earlier.

'Knives and curses,' said the old sailor.

'Or kisses and cuddles,' smirked Simone the Siren.

Without looking, Adira Strongheart hurled the mug. Badger and Simone jerked back their heads as crockery smashed on the wall.

The damage hardly showed in the abandoned inn that served as Palmyra's town hall. The big room had walls of scabby adobe, naked wooden beams, and a dirt floor. Torches at four comers and cheap candles shed a watery, sooty light. Scarred tables and rickety stools and chairs were the only furniture, and many were broken, for fights were common as cockroaches in Palmyra.

Yet the message was clear enough. Chastened, the onlookers shut up and let the unhappy couple squabble.

To see the two glare, it was hard to believe they had ever been married. Adira Strongheart was a stunning beauty with wild chestnut hair barely contained by a green silk headband. She wore tight trousers and a faded shirt that only emphasized her proud bosom. Bangles of gold, silver, and copper jangled at earlobes, wrists, and ankles even over her brown boots.