frowning in puzzlement. The torturer paused to look at a grey-bearded reprobate, who smiled and shook his head. The rumble deepened and grew louder, and the ground shook. Lamp fittings rattled on the walls, items vibrated off tables and clattered or smashed on the floor. Chanter concentrated on his command, Dolana's talons shredding his will. Tables walked across the floor, propelled by the vibrations running through it. Dust fell from the rafters in a gentle rain, powdering the Lowmen doctors' greasy faces. Some cried out in alarm and tried to run, but tripped and fell on the shaking floor.
A red cloud filled Chanter's mind, and warnings prickled his consciousness. Danger. Screams came from the street. Horses neighed and dogs barked. The crash of breaking glass slashed his ears with slivers of sharp dissonance. His will bowed under the weight of the danger, the dread that he might kill. His grip on Dolana slipped, and he released it. The rumble died and the shaking stopped, then oblivion claimed him in consolation.
Jashon glared at Tranton. 'That was him?'
Tranton nodded, his skin pale under its layer of dirty grease. 'Trying to scare us, that's all.'
Jashon looked down at the mutilated Mujar's peaceful features, then at his white-faced, diminished audience.
'Seems like he had some success.' He addressed the doctors who were leaving the room. 'What, do you think a Mujar can harm us?'
Most returned, shame-faced, to their positions, others left anyway. Jashon feigned utter calm as he continued to cut.
Chapter Seven
Talsy stopped in confusion when a dull rumbling started in the distance, then crouched as the ground trembled. Beggars and pickpockets scuttled for shelter, and within moments the street was deserted. She had experienced earth tremors before, but none as violent as this. The shanties swayed as the shivering increased, and one down the street collapsed in a cloud of dust and a scream from within. Crows flew up in alarm, cawing, dogs cowered and whimpered, braver ones barked in warning and defiance. The huts rattled as the shaking grew worse, a deep-throated rumble filling the air with malignant power. A woman clutching a wailing infant ran screaming from a hovel as it caved in behind her.
The trembling stopped and the rumble faded, rolling away across the hills. Talsy jumped aside as a loose horse galloped past to vanish into the slums. The city sat under a pall of dust, black smoke streaking the brown haze as fires broke out. Jabbering people ran around, put out fires and searched for loved ones. Talsy hurried up the street in the direction whence the horse had appeared, for the beast must have come from a more affluent area.
Soon, she left the maze of hovels behind and entered the garbage-filled market place, where pandemonium reigned. People ran about, shouted and extinguished fires where braziers and cooking stalls had spilt their smouldering contents. Muttering merchants gathered up fallen produce and mourned broken pottery. Many stalls were barrows with awnings, and these had faired quite well, but some older stalls, built from rotting timbers or loose stones, had collapsed.
Livestock had broken out of flimsy cages or pens and ran about in bleating, honking or bawling herds, their yelling, angry owners in pursuit. House owners inspected the damage to their property and cursed, counting the cost with scowls. In the confusion, she snatched up some fallen fruit and vegetables, ducking into a side street to eat them. While she was occupied with this pleasant task, a lathered horse galloped into the marketplace, and its exhausted rider slid from its back, almost into the arms of a group of guardsmen. His hoarse cries filled the already tense air with further anxiety and dread.
'The Black Riders are coming!'
Talsy craned around the edge of the building beside which she crouched, straining to hear the more subdued conversation with the guardsmen. Snatches of it reached her.
'…Two days away… Thousands… Heading straight here…'
Cold dread chilled her, robbing her of her hunger. People ran about in greater confusion, demanded more information, passed the news to the uninformed, and asked what to do and where to go. Talsy stuffed the pilfered food into her jacket, her anxiety redoubling. She had to find Chanter before the Black Riders arrived, and now she had less than two days to do it.
Jashon sawed through the Mujar's breast bone and reached in to cut out his beating heart. The doctor held it up, still throbbing, for his peers to inspect.
'Same as ours,' one commented. The audience had become bored. So far, the differences they had found in Mujar anatomy were negligible.
Another doctor leant forward to gaze into the Mujar's chest. 'It seems that Mujar are very similar to us, Jashon. So far all we've seen is a slight improvement on our own design, but basically identical.'
Jashon studied the beating heart. 'Indeed. Strange, don't you think? You'd think that a creature with such alien powers would be anatomically different, yet Mujar are the same as us.'
'Then perhaps the theory that they're the blighted offspring of wild mountain women is true.'
Jashon shook his head. 'I've never believed that theory. Those girls couldn't live long enough to raise a child, and if that was true, they'd be able to breed with us.'
'Not necessarily,' an aged professor pointed out. 'Mules are sterile.'
Jashon dropped the Mujar's heart on the floor, scowling at it as it ceased to beat. 'I refuse to believe that we're related to these useless yellow scum.'
Chanter stared at the ceiling. The pain of his chest being pulled open had dragged him from the peace of oblivion. Everything had become dim and distant, the doctors' voices a faraway mumbling. His blood had stopped coursing, and his heart's ever-present beat was absent, leaving pain as the only sensation. Dolana held him helpless in its freezing grip, but mercifully numbed the pain. A nearby animal mind sparked some interest deep within him, and he sensed the movement of a rat behind a wall not far away. Concentrating, he used a little Earthpower, just enough to mind-lock briefly with the animal, relaxing as it turned and scuttled away.
The Lowmen tugged and pushed at his insides, sent waves of burning pain through him and forced him to retreat deeper into himself to escape it. Closing his eyes, he called on sleep to claim him, and it washed away the pain with gentle waves of darkness.
Jashon walked back to his house with Tranton, deep in thought. The Mujar's disappointing examination had made several of his peers mutter about the money they had wasted, and he sensed that he had lost status in their eyes, even if it was not his fault. They had probably expected a refund, he thought bitterly. He hardly noticed the fearful people who scurried along the street, or the loose animals and their pursuers, although some brushed past him rudely in their haste. When he did take note, he blamed it on the earthquake earlier. The damage from the tremor filled the street with broken glass and plaster, which crunched beneath the pedestrians' feet as they hurried on their way.
At his door, he bade Tranton goodnight and entered his modest dwelling, cursing when he stepped on broken glass inside. He closed the door and glanced around at the bare shelves and smashed ornaments on the floor. It had cost him a significant amount to furnish his house with good quality fittings and velvet curtains, expensive rugs and satin-covered chairs. He was particularly proud of his china collection, and surveyed the damage in the lounge with a frown. Years of painstaking decoration had been ruined in a few minutes of rumbling. His plump wife rushed out of the kitchen and grabbed his arm, her face drawn with fear, tear streaks ruining her buxom beauty. Her brown hair straggled from its bun and dirt streaked her lacy blue gown. Jashon patted her hand, not listening to her hysterical gabble.
'It was just an earthquake,' he soothed. 'Nothing to worry about.'
She shook him. 'I'm not worried about the earthquake! We must flee! The Black Riders are coming!'
Jashon stared at her. 'The Black Riders?'
'Yes! Hashon Jahar! Two days away, coming here!'
'No, there must be some mistake, Hashon Jahar have never attacked a big city like Horran.' Jashon gripped her shoulders. 'It's a mistake!'
She shook her head. 'A rider brought the news. We must flee!'
