that he had risen and departed in the night. Then she saw what lay on the patterned mat: glistening mucus, a heap of chalky, yellowish-bluish-white wet things. A parody of a human shape, a mass of garbage-what was it? A prank? Lord Ketkorez never played pranks, nor did she ever recall seeing him smile spontaneously.
“Lady, what occurred last evening?” Chakkunaz backed away. He held his nose.
“Naught unusual. We made love, we feasted-”
“Nothing else? No one came? No sorcerer visited here?”
“No-He was moody and wanted no guests. Why?”
“There are stories afoot in the quarters-tales of others who vanished this very night. A general of one of the legions, a merchant from the Plaza of the Diadem of White, a priestess from the temple of Kirrineb, a pair of traders in the Foreigners’ Quarter, servants, clansmen-at least a dozen…”
“What? Like this? Is that-is that-stuff-Lord Ketkorez?” “The Gods know. It is the same elsewhere. So run the wagging tongues.”
“Call the guards-!” Siyuneb started toward the staircase that led down from the terrace. There would be a squad of soldiers on duty below.
“Yes-no! Wait. You were the last to see him before-before this. The Vru’uneb will take you to the temple. You will be questioned-as many others have been already.”
“What to do?” A knot of panic was forming just under her heart. “I know nothing. I swear-I had naught to do with it-with this.” The sight and smell of what might have been Lord Ketkorez made her queasy.
Chakkunaz straightened up. “You must take what you can and flee.” His tone was hard and crisp. “Get your jewellery, all of your money, the best of your things-I will accompany you as far as the harbour. There are ships there for other lands-Tsolyanu, Mu’ugalavya-even the nations of the Shen.”
She began to quake. The horror of her situation was only now beginning to seep into her limbs, a dank and deadly feeling, like a bath in cold oil. The disappearance-or death-of a great nobleman, and she his sole companion, the last to see him alive…?
“You-would you go farther-come with me?” She lacked the courage to go alone.
He gave her an appraising look. “I-might.-Yes, why not? What have I here? And we have-cared-for one another.”
She knew him all too well. He might be as greedy as Demon Prince Origob himself, but she thought she could manage him. She must have someone!
Chakkunaz came to her and embraced her easily. “Do not fear, lady-my love-for I shall protect you. We must move quickly and with all of the circumspection of the gods themselves!” Frantically, shivering with a terror she could neither explain nor master, Siyuneb allowed herself to be led down to her apartments within the palace. A bundle of clothing, her money, and her jewels were all Chakkunaz let her take. Then they departed by the back gate, ducking between the lumbering Chlen- carts full of the day’s supplies for the palace kitchens. The Feather- kilted cooks and naked slaves paid them scant attention.
The Vru’uneb-, the ever-efficient arm of the Livyani theocratic state, the iron dagger beneath the silken coverlet, apprehended them just after they had purchased passage on a round-hulled merchantman bound for Jakalla.
Siyuneb never saw Chakkunaz again, nor was she told what had become of him. The heavy coins he had carried for her vanished as well. Yet she herself was treated with all the deference due a First Concubine, and no one touched the jewels she wore. A cold-eyed captain and a trio of ebon-robed hierophants questioned her politely but at length. Hours, days-months? — passed; she had no idea of time within the blind walls of Lord Quame’el’s inner temple. Her interrogators advised her not to return to Lord Ketkorez’ palace, not to meddle, never to seek to learn what had occurred. She should go back to her village in the Tlashte Heights and find her clansmen. Her gems would buy a little house, a patch of garden, and a decent husband; then she must make her peace with Lord Qame’el, devote herself to His worship, and grow old as gracefully and inconspicuously as possible.
That was all. She was free.
One thing she remembered from the dreary, anxious hours of her interrogation. It was just a word, one she did not know: He’esa. Her questioners asked her repeatedly and interminably about that, but she could only shake her head.
What was a He'esal She never dared to ask.
In Jakalla the city watch reported that one Dlamu hiTranukka, a rascal who dealt in gems and other curios, had disappeared. Only his much overworked staff thought to ask what the mess was that someone had thrown down upon the floor of his strongroom. He had no strong clan affiliation, no family, and hence his presence was not much mourned. His wealth, on the other hand, proved most useful: it provided the barristers of the Palace of the Realm with cases, claims, and counter-claims for years to come.
Three scribes who served General Kadarsha hiTlekolumii, of the Tsolyani Imperium’s Legion of the Searing Flame, vanished as well. They were serious, conscientious, unassuming workers, and he briefly mourned their loss. He mentioned the matter to his master, Prince Mirusiya, one of whose adherents he was, but the Prince only remarked that some of his own people had suddenly become ill and died, too, quite unaccountably. General Kadarsha’s physician and sometime house-wizard, Eyloa, consulted his tomes and suggested the possibility of a new form of the terrible Ailment of Arkhuan Mssa. For several days thereafter Eyloa appeared more than usually grim and morose, which was odd even for an eccentric philosopher such as he.
Several servitors of the Vriddi clan of Fasiltum perished mysteriously, as did a half dozen subalterns and junior officers of the Legion of Victorious in Vimuhla, one of Mu’ugalavya’s elite units. An Ahoggya village chief in Salarvya, a Shen egg-layer in Mmatugual, a handful of Pygmy Folk in the subterranean den-city situated on the eastern border of Yan Kor-all did the same. In Yan Kor itself, the clever young master of the Clan of the High Spires of Riilla was found to be missing, and the matriarchs of the clan hastened to marry his plump widow to his younger cousin, a simpleton far more amenable to decent female management than he had been!
The Lord Staffbearer of the Palace of Effulgent Radiance in Saa Allaqi discovered raddled garbage, like the intestines of an animal, in the beds of three princelings of the blood. Frightened, he reported only that these youths had fled, perhaps apprehensive of some plot by their siblings. The Ssao, King of Saa Allaqi, sent forth a summons to the other thirty or so of his offspring-as many as he could remember. All responded save the Princess Vrissa, perhaps twenty-fourth in line, who was off seeing the world somewhere and could not be reached.
Although no count was ever made, the diligent scribes of the Palace of the Realm in Bey Sii estimated that, all across the Five Empires, perhaps five or six hundred (a thousand, whispered some) persons-human and nonhuman alike-died during the Night of the New Ailment of Arkhuan Mssa. There was anxiety for a time, but when the plague ceased and did not reappear, the matter was filed away. More important doings were afoot, and only a few of the presumed victims were anybody important anyway.
Eventually the Omnipotent Azure Legion presented a thick sheaf of reports to Lord Chaimira hiSsanmirin, the High Prefect of the Chancery of Avanthar. In turn, that worthy laid these before the Servitors of Silence, who guarded the Emperor in the Golden Tower. An edict was subsequently issued commanding greater sanitation throughout the cities of Tsolyanu. A council of scholars and priests and physicians was later called into secret session, nevertheless, in the Hall of the Petal Throne itself.
The results of this conference were not made public.
A hundred lumbering Chlen — beasts pulled the wagon. The dust of their passing was a dun-coloured cloak spread over the sere wastelands of the western marches of the Desert of Sighs. Upon the cart rode the Baron’s “Weapon Without Answer”: a cube the size of a small house, swathed all in black cloth. Worked upon the fabric in silver and green were the insignia of Yan Kor, of the Gods of the north, and of the promise of death to all the Baron’s foes. Ten pairs of wheels, each two man-heights tall and a quarter of a man-height thick, groaned and screamed and jolted upon the rough stones. The wagon was far too large to travel upon the Sakbe road that ran from the city of Hlikku in Yan Kor southwesterly to Khirgar and thence into the rich Tsolyani heartland. A full thousand masons and carpenters and labourers toiled in advance of the column beside the road to make a way for it.
Two contingents of green-clad troops flanked the march: the elite First and Second Legions of Mighty Yan Kor. Three more Legions preceded the grumbling wagon; still others followed. An auxiliary Cohort of Hlaka scouts, the little flying nonhumans from beyond Kilalammu in the distant northeast, swooped and soared overhead, their ribald chittering drifting down the wind.
From a vantage point upon the highest level of the Sakbe road one could see all of the long serpentine
